A Dallas journalist was reportedly fired last month after referring to the city’s mayor as “bruh” in a tweet.
According to HuffPost, Meghan Mangrum was working as an education reporter for the Dallas Morning News’ Education Lab when she decided to respond to a tweet from Mayor Eric Johnson in which he called out the local media for having “no interest” in reporting a decline in violent crimes in Dallas over the past year.
Our local media have no interest in reporting on this data, which is why you haven’t heard about it. But you better believe if Dallas was leading the nation in violent crime INCREASES you’d be hearing about it daily. It’s sad, really. Kudos to @DallasPD and our residents!👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
“Bruh, national news is always going to chase the trend. Cultivate relationships with quality local news partnerships,” Mangrum wrote in the since-deleted tweet.
Although several local news outlets, Dallas Morning News included, reported the city’s drop in violent crime, Johnson took exception to Mangrum’s use of the word “bruh.”
Gotta love when folks let their inherent biases show. I get to be addressed as “bruh” by someone who writes for my daily local paper whom I’ve never met.🤷🏾♂️
Mangrum told D Magazine that she received an email from an editor on the same day that the tweet was sent, asking her to attend a Monday meeting.
During the conversation, Mangrum said she was asked by the outlet’s executive editor Katrice Hardy, who is Black, if she would have called Johnson “bruh” if he was white. Mangrum, who is white, said she would have, citing instances where the term is used on Twitter.
The day after the meeting, Mangrum participated in the Dallas News Guild protest in front of the outlet’s headquarters, which she helped organize. Mangrum was fired the following day.
“Standing up for my colleagues and the work that we do, when I know we’re doing good and honest work, is something I pride myself on and something that I look for in my colleagues and in my workplace as well,” Mangrum said.
