screengrab from https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1092982660761374722
A kid named Joshua Trump got bullied in school for his last name. Kids are mean and this dude drew the short straw in both name and era. There is no excuse for bullying though, and Trump was offering this kid a chance to experience something no other kid his age would get to experience. It was actually pretty cool.
But, being so young and the State Of The Union address being so long, naturally, young Josh fell asleep. Again, totally understandable.
What isn’t understandable, however, is why a major, legacy media outlet would actually write the following story: Trump’s namesake sleeps through president’s big speech.
Dressed in formal white shirt and (loosened) tie, he had a prime seat in the House gallery — right there in the same row as first lady Melania Trump, who has made it her cause to stop such bullying.
He’d made national headlines because it isn’t every day that an 11-year-old is the president’s special guest at such an auspicious occasion.
The young Trump was making headlines again the day after, too, just as the older Trump was.
A photo getting prominent play on TV, in newspapers and on websites on Wednesday shows him, amid all the applause and the historic speechmaking, head back, sound asleep.
Now, maybe ABC News thought this would be a cute little story. Something to make us laugh and look at the brighter side of life. Instead, what they did was open this kid up to more bullying.
Why would you do that? What possible sense does it make to post this about a kid who was a victim of bullying at his school? His classmates knew he was there. They would have looked for him if they could. If they missed him but saw the photo being pushed out later by a viral news tweet or someone else, then that only makes the problem worse.
This is just stupid, mean journalism.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member