BuzzFeed Editor Just Got Lit Up on Twitter for 'Disgusting' Take on Sri Lanka and Trump

By Joe Saunders April 22, 2019 at 10:19am

BuzzFeed just keeps blowing it.

Even among the many media outlets that have disgraced themselves in the Donald Trump Era, BuzzFeed stands out.

Remember, it was the liberal website that first published the “dossier” about Trump that helped feed the Russia collusion frenzy — a dossier that’s been thoroughly debunked.

And at a time when establishment media outlets were routinely overhyping and mischaracterizing every procedural turn of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, it was BuzzFeed that stood out with a report so bad it was actually called out by the normally tight-lipped special counsel’s office.

So when news spread Sunday about the barbaric Easter bombing attacks in the island nation of Sri Lanka that killed almost 300 people by last count, it might not be a shock that a top BuzzFeed editor decided to use the occasion as a smear on Donald Trump and his millions of supporters.

For Sri Lankans, the attacks were the worst outbreak of violence since the country’s civil war ended 10 years ago, according to The Associated Press.

For Christians the world over, they were as an act of viciousness, murdering believers on the holiest day of the liturgical calendar.

But for Miriam Elder, world editor at BuzzFeed, they were a chance for a cheap shot at Trump.

“Suspect we’d be hearing a lot more outrage from Trump and co. if the Christians killed in Sri Lanka were white,” Elder wrote in a Twitter post.

Suspect we’d be hearing a lot more outrage from Trump and co. if the Christians killed in Sri Lanka were white https://t.co/7bNAiymzib

— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) April 21, 2019

The ignorant effrontery is almost staggering.

The lives of nearly 300 people had just been snuffed out in what CNN is reporting were coordinated, murderous actions again Christian houses of worship by an Islamist terror group, and the first thing a member of the Western media can think about is how to turn it into an attack on a president she clearly despises.

And what did Trump do that apparently spurred Elder’s baseless spite?

This is Trump’s Twitter post reacting to word of the Sri Lankan massacre:

138 people have been killed in Sri Lanka, with more that 600 badly injured, in a terrorist attack on churches and hotels. The United States offers heartfelt condolences to the great people of Sri Lanka. We stand ready to help!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2019

So, the most powerful man on the globe issued public “heartfelt condolences” and vowed before the world that “We stand ready to help!” That’s not exactly ignoring the situation, no matter what Elder’s imagination wants to dream up. (It’s true that Trump’s response actually got the number of fatalities wrong, but that says more about how quickly he reacted than indifference to the facts.)

And Trump supporters on social media went on the attack themselves — against Elder.

By Monday morning, Elder’s tweet attracted more than 8,000 responses – the overwhelming majority of them negative – and only 233 retweets and 548 “likes.” (The term for that is “ratioed,” and it doesn’t make BuzzFeed look good at all.)

Here’s a sampling of the comments:

You are a disgusting human being, if I can even call you that! You are so filled with hate for 1 man that you disregard the hundreds of victims and their families’ feelings. Trump has more empathy for ALL the victims than you will ever have.

— Amy Ainsworth (@AmyAinsworth76) April 22, 2019

There was not one single reason that this needed to be said. What a small, petty, bitter person. Find a reason to be less hateful. Quick.

— Travis Gray (@Trav_Gray_) April 21, 2019

Vulgar, unprofessional and sad response by @miriamelder to a horrific event.

— Danny Astin (@DannyAstin) April 22, 2019

Can you wait until the bodies are cold before you dance an the graves, thank you.

— 8BitSloth (@8BitSlothiness) April 22, 2019

That last one hit home.

Is this an example of why the media can't be trusted?

The bodies of the victims of Sunday’s attacks had barely cooled before leftists like Elder were using their deaths to smear an American president they dislike for political reasons. Race-baiting on the graves of hundreds of murder victims isn’t likely to attract many Americans to her side.

It’s not even clear what the goal was.

If the idea was to make Trump and his supporters look bad, Elder’s post really ended up doing was drawing attention to how reflexively unfair the media actually is.

If the idea was to make Elder and her fellow travelers look smart, it had exactly the opposite effect — proving just how dense and unfeeling leftists actually are.

But then this is BuzzFeed. And in the age of Trump, BuzzFeed keeps blowing it.

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Tags:

American left, Culture, Establishment media, Liberal media, Media bias, Sri Lanka

Joe Saunders

Story Editor

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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015.

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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn't need a printing press to do it.

Birthplace

Philadelphia

Nationality

American