Reporter Digs Dirt On A Man Who Donated Over $2M To A Children’s Hospital, People Respond By Doing The Same To Him
The past should be left in the past and shouldn’t be used to tar a charitable person’s reputation. At least that’s the signal some internet some users sent after learning that a reporter dug up dirt on a charitable person who raised a massive amount of money to charity.
Reporter Aaron Calvin found out that Carson King, who raised more than 2.2 million dollars for a children’s hospital, had made incredibly racist jokes from 8 years ago when he was a dumb teenager. Some internet users thought that this was unethical reporting and dug up unpleasant things from Calvin’s past in response. In an ironic twist, Calvin ended up getting fired at the Des Moines Register over the offensive social media posts he made himself.
Carson King received massive amounts of money after showing up with this sign
He decided to use this money for good
Image credits: CarsonKing2
King thought that donating his newly-acquired riches to a children’s hospital would be the best decision
King’s story went viral and everyone started writing about it, including Aaron Calvin from the Des Moines Register
Image credits: CarsonKing2
Calvin found out King had made racist jokes when he was a teenager; the latter officially apologized for his past mistakes
Image credits: CarsonKing2
Image credits: CarsonKing2
King thanked everyone for their support
Some internet users found the ‘attack’ on King’s character distasteful and started digging up dirt on the reporter
Image credits: Austin_712
The reporter had made plenty of offensive posts himself…
…and got fired over them
Image credits: DMRegister
Image credits: Austin_712
Image credits: KimReynoldsIA
The entire situation is a bit complicated and full of rampant emotions, so it’s best to summarize what happened. King, who is 24, became flush with cash after bringing a funny sign about needing more beer (“Busch Light Supply Needs Replenished”) to College Gameday.
Out of the goodness of his heart, King decided to donate almost all of the money to a children’s hospital. That’s where the brewing company Anheuser-Busch comes in, stating that it’s going to donate as well.
The story then goes viral, and one of the people who wrote about it was Calvin from the Des Moines Register. While doing a background check on King, he finds that he had made racist jokes when he was 16. Calvin includes this info in the article about King, leading to Anheuser-Busch cutting off ties with the latter.
Now, some people thought that bringing up dirt in an article meant to celebrate a person’s generosity was a low blow. So they started digging up dirt on Calvin, including all the offensive things he’s ever said about any group. The Des Moines Register ended up firing Calvin over his comments.
“We took appropriate action because there is nothing more important in journalism than having readers’ trust,” the Executive Editor of the Des Moines Register Carol Hunter wrote in an opinion piece when she responded to the outrage to the original story. “That reporter is no longer with the Register.”
The controversy didn’t stop people from supporting King and helping him raise money for charity. At the start of this week, donations soared through the roof, reaching more than 2.2 million dollars.
Dear Readers, what do you think about this entire situation? Do you think that Calvin publishing mistakes that King did 8 years ago was the right thing to do? What do you think about internet users then digging up dirt on Calvin? Do you think Calvin deserved to lose his job? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Here’s how some internet users reacted to the entire story
Oh for goodness sake. What is this obsession with continuing to punish people for stupid things they did as children and teenagers? They're supposed to do stupid things at that age. A heck of a lot of people would not be able to stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Hopefully that is the lesson that the reporter will take away from this and not, ooooh, the nasty internet took away his job.
It all depends on if they learned from their mistakes and changed as a person. Clearly Carson King has. In this case everything worked out as it should.
Load More Replies...I will be forever grateful that social media did not exist when I was a teenager!!!
Me too! I consider myself liberal and not a hateful person. But I know I said some dumb a*s s**t that would probably sound racist. I actually have notes my best friend wrote in jr. high and some are hilarious but one has something that seems so horrible now but I know she never meant it that way. She would be devastated if I posted it online. I kind of wish she had kept mine but I guess it’s good she didn’t.
Load More Replies...There's a chance the reporter works for a media outlet that encourages this kind of behavior. It was a s****y thing to do, but somehow I get there feeling there's some editor in chief there right now who thanks his lucky stars. Stories like these don't get published by lone wolf reporters, he probably ran the story by his editor and got the approval to publish it. Then the backlash happens and the reporter gets fired.
You are 100% correct: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/des-moines-register-iowa-reporter-fired-aaron-calvin-carson
Load More Replies...Even if he was an adult when he made racist remarks, the FACT that he is doing good things now is all that matters. Aren't we Supposed to change racist peoples minds and show them the error of their thinking? Or are they just supposed to stay racist till they die?
That is what I don't understand! With politicians, I don't care what party they are with - if they did black face decades ago and have since recognized it is racist, insensitive, and strive towards promoting racial equality - then shouldn't we forgive and be glad that people are now starting to learn to treat others how they wish to be treated?
Load More Replies...Anheuser-Busch distanced them selves from Carson after learning (from the reporter) about those past tweets. They withdrew their offer to supply Carson with a year's supply of Busch Lite. One city in Iowa (Waterloo) has a very large Oktoberfest celebration...they banned Anheuser-Busch products at the celebration. They cancelled their order. From the reports I've read, sales have drastically gone down in Iowa for Busch Lite. And as another BoredPanda commenter said, Busch Lite is kinda Iowa's state beer.
Good for Iowa! I’m glad they donated something, but they overreacted by distancing themselves from C.K. and now it’s biting them in the butt.
Load More Replies...How ON EARTH did the reporter not delete those tweets?? Did he really think people wouldn’t go into his history as well? Lesson learned for both let’s hope. More importantly, a huge amount of money was raised for a truly wonderful children’s hospital (that happens to be in my home state :))
That's what shocked me too - the pendulum swings both ways. Did he really think no one would find/remember his own offenses? Dumbass.
Load More Replies...What the reporter did was nasty, mean spirited and wrong. But I'm struggling to see how other people doing exactly the same thing to him is any better. Two wrongs don't make a right.
It would have been exactly the same thing if the reporter also was a teen when he posted something stupid. I think he doesn't had that kind of excuse. So he got punished for being an adult and still posting stupid things online.
Load More Replies...An eye for an eye and everyone goes blind. What about not going through people's social media history and acting like people can't change their opinions or how they act in society?
Isn't the purpose of life to learn as we go and grow as people? Soooo many mistakes have been made by my younger self. Lessons learned. Good for him to grow into a caring individual!!!
Load More Replies...Cancel culture needs to be canceled. We’ve all said stupid sh*t in our pasts. It’s not fair to judge you from your past, but from the person you are today. Anyone can change
that's like punishing your 35yo kid for Something he did when he was 15. what's the matter with that?
I’m still punishing my husband for not putting the toilet seat down in April 2006.
Load More Replies...As a 14 year old kid (female) trying to find my way in the world (in my VERY sheltered world, I might add), I wrote Eminem lyrics in the back of my English book as I was trying to learn the words. This was discovered by my English teacher, who had been sexually abused as a child - I did it innocently (I definitely didn't understand exactly what he was singing about), and definitely not in a malicious way. Kids/teenagers do silly things all the time, it's how we learn and grow. The fact that that reporter would go digging for something that happened a lifetime ago for this amazing young man is ridiculous.
Thank you for sharing what must have been a very humiliating and painful experience. I hope your English teacher forgave your innocent faux-pas and accepted your apology (if there was one).
Load More Replies...There's a big difference between some adolescent making a stupid comment and, say, a public official making offensive comments as an adult. Social prejudice is never okay, but clearly this was a very long time ago in this young man's life, and to try and derail an incredible act of generosity and fundraising was petty and unnecessary by the reporter, who clearly was guilty of much worse things.
I think there are cases where an 8 year lapse doesn't excuse some behavior, but that's for much older people who are running for office. Stuff a 16 year old said is almost meaningless in terms of who they are when they grow up.
The difference between 16 year old me and 21 year old me are almost 2 different people!
Load More Replies...I'm really not against looking at people's past to see if they screwed up badly. But there has to be some kind of scale. Sexually abusing underage people, - you won't shake that off for the rest of your life, and you shouldn't. Saying some stupid s**t on social media as a young person ... come on. Have some perspective! (And I will now go and light a candle in thanks for having been a teen when social media was not invented yet. Man, I was SUCH an a*****e at times. Fortunately, no record of the stupid s**t I did and said exists!)
I've been thinking lately I owe my high school art teacher an apology. I was such a jerk!
Load More Replies...If we hold people responsible -- across their life span -- for the idiotic things we all do as teenagers...would any of us be above reproach?! Not me, at least. What adults do is very different from what teens do. For all the mistakes we make in life, we can learn, grow, change and go on to do wonderful things. Sadly, this doesn't hold true for everyone. Some people -- reporter in this case -- seem never to learn and hold others to far different standards than the ones they hold for themselves.
I don't hold the things that people did in the past against them...unless they are continuing to do those stupid things. Part of growing up is making mistakes. Part of being an adult is learning from them so you don't continuously make the same stupid mistakes. But I also live by the saying "People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks." If you have something in your past that you don't want anyone to know, then think twice before trying to start a smear campaign against someone who's only trying to do the right thing.
This young man is doing a good thing and that reporter shouldn't have gone looking in his past to point out something negative about him. I am fairly certain that he is not the same person he was 8 years ago. No one is. People let's start trying to lift each other up instead of tearing each other down.
I can't stand Daniel Tosh (the guy whom King quoted) - he acts like every offensive thing he says can be made OK by saying "Huh huh, that's racist." His worldview is really ugly and un-funny.
His legions of fans and millions of dollars disagree with you. I think he's hilarious. You can say you don't like him and find him unfunny, but to claim he's factually unfunny is one: just an opinion, and two: empirically wrong. He's very successful. I think lots of really successful comedians are dreadful. Sebastian Meniscalco is the least funny comedian ever but he plays stadiums so obviously he's "funny", just not to me.
Load More Replies...If we demand that people who do stupid things as teenagers continue to suffer from their mistakes then where would any of us be? I'm not talking about killing someone, but saying terrible things via social media. Yes, the guy was offensive and wrong and a whole lot more. BUT he is no longer a child, he's an adult who seems to be doing good things. Let's judge -- if we must judge at all -- on the basis of what he thinks and does as an adult. A man who would use what started as a silly joke, to do this much good more than deserves respect and, again if necessary, forgiveness for a stupid thing done as a kid.
I am curious about something... it says he donated “Almost all of it”. How much did he keep and why?
The reporter was doing his job. This is really shady to me... this guy gets all this money and donates it directly to a university hospital? Nobody is ever going to see that money again. And this happens right after these people completely blew their budget on making this hospital look cool mid-project? It’s too convenient. I’d be chasing down leads as well.
When I was a teenager I said some racist things i picked up from my older brother and at the time it seemed ok to say; as an adult I would never say those things because I grew up and I know better.
I'm so tired of the trend of judging people based on their past actions. PEOPLE. CAN. CHANGE. If anything be happy that they have moved away from childish hate and improved as a person.
If you live in a glass house, don't throw stones. I'm sure many of us have done or said stupid things in our youth, that we would never consider saying or doing now.
It is stories like this one that make me wish that I had stayed in Kazakhstan. I never imagined when I was a child that Americans could be this cruel.
I understand your feelings, but humans can be cruel; it's doesn't matter that he's American. I know people that would give you the shirt off their back and I know people that would put a knife in yours, every individual makes their choice.
Load More Replies...I feel terrible that he was trying to do something fabulous and it bit him in the a*s. I see both sides here, I really do. And I think there’s a lot more to the story. The important thing, in my opinion, is both men have admitted to their mistakes and have shown a lot of growth. I try to emphasize to my daughter constantly that what you post online will live on forever. This story drives that point home.
Nowhere can I find word for word what those "racist" tweets are. People are outraged without even knowing exactly what is said. That said, the reporter looks like a weasel and the type who'd be hypocritically virtue signalling, then claiming victimhood, which he did. He even referenced coloured women in his victimhood statement. Pathetic. Just own up to the fact you're a hypocrite. F**k that guy.
What did the journalist say? What racist comment is he referring to? The story does not show everything.
I thought Aaron Calvin was the journalist and the posts under that name were his.
Load More Replies...The main point I got form this story is people can and do change. We shouldn't punish people for dumb things that were done in past (dumb does not mean rape attempts or things of that nature) especially when it is clear they have changed. The other side of this coin is that not everyone matures or changes their behavior. If a person is a s****y racist today and you dig up past quotes proving they were always that way then yeah you can use them. The point being your past bad behaviors matter if you haven't done anything to correct or learn from them.
I don’t know why you are getting down voted. I think you are right. I’m an atheist but what happened to Christians and forgiveness?
Load More Replies...Carson King exhibited immense grace and dignity in all of this. He didn't lash out at the reporter or shame him, he apologized. THE PRESIDENT could learn a lot from him.
That's the downside of social media and the internet. Everything you once posted will stay there. There's no "delete" button. When you post something offensive as a young kid, it can come up again 8, 10 or 15 years later. And that's something that a lot of young people do not know or don't realize. There's a simple rule: "If you don't want your parents to find it in the newspaper, don't put it on the internet."
Oh for goodness sake. What is this obsession with continuing to punish people for stupid things they did as children and teenagers? They're supposed to do stupid things at that age. A heck of a lot of people would not be able to stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Hopefully that is the lesson that the reporter will take away from this and not, ooooh, the nasty internet took away his job.
It all depends on if they learned from their mistakes and changed as a person. Clearly Carson King has. In this case everything worked out as it should.
Load More Replies...I will be forever grateful that social media did not exist when I was a teenager!!!
Me too! I consider myself liberal and not a hateful person. But I know I said some dumb a*s s**t that would probably sound racist. I actually have notes my best friend wrote in jr. high and some are hilarious but one has something that seems so horrible now but I know she never meant it that way. She would be devastated if I posted it online. I kind of wish she had kept mine but I guess it’s good she didn’t.
Load More Replies...There's a chance the reporter works for a media outlet that encourages this kind of behavior. It was a s****y thing to do, but somehow I get there feeling there's some editor in chief there right now who thanks his lucky stars. Stories like these don't get published by lone wolf reporters, he probably ran the story by his editor and got the approval to publish it. Then the backlash happens and the reporter gets fired.
You are 100% correct: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/des-moines-register-iowa-reporter-fired-aaron-calvin-carson
Load More Replies...Even if he was an adult when he made racist remarks, the FACT that he is doing good things now is all that matters. Aren't we Supposed to change racist peoples minds and show them the error of their thinking? Or are they just supposed to stay racist till they die?
That is what I don't understand! With politicians, I don't care what party they are with - if they did black face decades ago and have since recognized it is racist, insensitive, and strive towards promoting racial equality - then shouldn't we forgive and be glad that people are now starting to learn to treat others how they wish to be treated?
Load More Replies...Anheuser-Busch distanced them selves from Carson after learning (from the reporter) about those past tweets. They withdrew their offer to supply Carson with a year's supply of Busch Lite. One city in Iowa (Waterloo) has a very large Oktoberfest celebration...they banned Anheuser-Busch products at the celebration. They cancelled their order. From the reports I've read, sales have drastically gone down in Iowa for Busch Lite. And as another BoredPanda commenter said, Busch Lite is kinda Iowa's state beer.
Good for Iowa! I’m glad they donated something, but they overreacted by distancing themselves from C.K. and now it’s biting them in the butt.
Load More Replies...How ON EARTH did the reporter not delete those tweets?? Did he really think people wouldn’t go into his history as well? Lesson learned for both let’s hope. More importantly, a huge amount of money was raised for a truly wonderful children’s hospital (that happens to be in my home state :))
That's what shocked me too - the pendulum swings both ways. Did he really think no one would find/remember his own offenses? Dumbass.
Load More Replies...What the reporter did was nasty, mean spirited and wrong. But I'm struggling to see how other people doing exactly the same thing to him is any better. Two wrongs don't make a right.
It would have been exactly the same thing if the reporter also was a teen when he posted something stupid. I think he doesn't had that kind of excuse. So he got punished for being an adult and still posting stupid things online.
Load More Replies...An eye for an eye and everyone goes blind. What about not going through people's social media history and acting like people can't change their opinions or how they act in society?
Isn't the purpose of life to learn as we go and grow as people? Soooo many mistakes have been made by my younger self. Lessons learned. Good for him to grow into a caring individual!!!
Load More Replies...Cancel culture needs to be canceled. We’ve all said stupid sh*t in our pasts. It’s not fair to judge you from your past, but from the person you are today. Anyone can change
that's like punishing your 35yo kid for Something he did when he was 15. what's the matter with that?
I’m still punishing my husband for not putting the toilet seat down in April 2006.
Load More Replies...As a 14 year old kid (female) trying to find my way in the world (in my VERY sheltered world, I might add), I wrote Eminem lyrics in the back of my English book as I was trying to learn the words. This was discovered by my English teacher, who had been sexually abused as a child - I did it innocently (I definitely didn't understand exactly what he was singing about), and definitely not in a malicious way. Kids/teenagers do silly things all the time, it's how we learn and grow. The fact that that reporter would go digging for something that happened a lifetime ago for this amazing young man is ridiculous.
Thank you for sharing what must have been a very humiliating and painful experience. I hope your English teacher forgave your innocent faux-pas and accepted your apology (if there was one).
Load More Replies...There's a big difference between some adolescent making a stupid comment and, say, a public official making offensive comments as an adult. Social prejudice is never okay, but clearly this was a very long time ago in this young man's life, and to try and derail an incredible act of generosity and fundraising was petty and unnecessary by the reporter, who clearly was guilty of much worse things.
I think there are cases where an 8 year lapse doesn't excuse some behavior, but that's for much older people who are running for office. Stuff a 16 year old said is almost meaningless in terms of who they are when they grow up.
The difference between 16 year old me and 21 year old me are almost 2 different people!
Load More Replies...I'm really not against looking at people's past to see if they screwed up badly. But there has to be some kind of scale. Sexually abusing underage people, - you won't shake that off for the rest of your life, and you shouldn't. Saying some stupid s**t on social media as a young person ... come on. Have some perspective! (And I will now go and light a candle in thanks for having been a teen when social media was not invented yet. Man, I was SUCH an a*****e at times. Fortunately, no record of the stupid s**t I did and said exists!)
I've been thinking lately I owe my high school art teacher an apology. I was such a jerk!
Load More Replies...If we hold people responsible -- across their life span -- for the idiotic things we all do as teenagers...would any of us be above reproach?! Not me, at least. What adults do is very different from what teens do. For all the mistakes we make in life, we can learn, grow, change and go on to do wonderful things. Sadly, this doesn't hold true for everyone. Some people -- reporter in this case -- seem never to learn and hold others to far different standards than the ones they hold for themselves.
I don't hold the things that people did in the past against them...unless they are continuing to do those stupid things. Part of growing up is making mistakes. Part of being an adult is learning from them so you don't continuously make the same stupid mistakes. But I also live by the saying "People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks." If you have something in your past that you don't want anyone to know, then think twice before trying to start a smear campaign against someone who's only trying to do the right thing.
This young man is doing a good thing and that reporter shouldn't have gone looking in his past to point out something negative about him. I am fairly certain that he is not the same person he was 8 years ago. No one is. People let's start trying to lift each other up instead of tearing each other down.
I can't stand Daniel Tosh (the guy whom King quoted) - he acts like every offensive thing he says can be made OK by saying "Huh huh, that's racist." His worldview is really ugly and un-funny.
His legions of fans and millions of dollars disagree with you. I think he's hilarious. You can say you don't like him and find him unfunny, but to claim he's factually unfunny is one: just an opinion, and two: empirically wrong. He's very successful. I think lots of really successful comedians are dreadful. Sebastian Meniscalco is the least funny comedian ever but he plays stadiums so obviously he's "funny", just not to me.
Load More Replies...If we demand that people who do stupid things as teenagers continue to suffer from their mistakes then where would any of us be? I'm not talking about killing someone, but saying terrible things via social media. Yes, the guy was offensive and wrong and a whole lot more. BUT he is no longer a child, he's an adult who seems to be doing good things. Let's judge -- if we must judge at all -- on the basis of what he thinks and does as an adult. A man who would use what started as a silly joke, to do this much good more than deserves respect and, again if necessary, forgiveness for a stupid thing done as a kid.
I am curious about something... it says he donated “Almost all of it”. How much did he keep and why?
The reporter was doing his job. This is really shady to me... this guy gets all this money and donates it directly to a university hospital? Nobody is ever going to see that money again. And this happens right after these people completely blew their budget on making this hospital look cool mid-project? It’s too convenient. I’d be chasing down leads as well.
When I was a teenager I said some racist things i picked up from my older brother and at the time it seemed ok to say; as an adult I would never say those things because I grew up and I know better.
I'm so tired of the trend of judging people based on their past actions. PEOPLE. CAN. CHANGE. If anything be happy that they have moved away from childish hate and improved as a person.
If you live in a glass house, don't throw stones. I'm sure many of us have done or said stupid things in our youth, that we would never consider saying or doing now.
It is stories like this one that make me wish that I had stayed in Kazakhstan. I never imagined when I was a child that Americans could be this cruel.
I understand your feelings, but humans can be cruel; it's doesn't matter that he's American. I know people that would give you the shirt off their back and I know people that would put a knife in yours, every individual makes their choice.
Load More Replies...I feel terrible that he was trying to do something fabulous and it bit him in the a*s. I see both sides here, I really do. And I think there’s a lot more to the story. The important thing, in my opinion, is both men have admitted to their mistakes and have shown a lot of growth. I try to emphasize to my daughter constantly that what you post online will live on forever. This story drives that point home.
Nowhere can I find word for word what those "racist" tweets are. People are outraged without even knowing exactly what is said. That said, the reporter looks like a weasel and the type who'd be hypocritically virtue signalling, then claiming victimhood, which he did. He even referenced coloured women in his victimhood statement. Pathetic. Just own up to the fact you're a hypocrite. F**k that guy.
What did the journalist say? What racist comment is he referring to? The story does not show everything.
I thought Aaron Calvin was the journalist and the posts under that name were his.
Load More Replies...The main point I got form this story is people can and do change. We shouldn't punish people for dumb things that were done in past (dumb does not mean rape attempts or things of that nature) especially when it is clear they have changed. The other side of this coin is that not everyone matures or changes their behavior. If a person is a s****y racist today and you dig up past quotes proving they were always that way then yeah you can use them. The point being your past bad behaviors matter if you haven't done anything to correct or learn from them.
I don’t know why you are getting down voted. I think you are right. I’m an atheist but what happened to Christians and forgiveness?
Load More Replies...Carson King exhibited immense grace and dignity in all of this. He didn't lash out at the reporter or shame him, he apologized. THE PRESIDENT could learn a lot from him.
That's the downside of social media and the internet. Everything you once posted will stay there. There's no "delete" button. When you post something offensive as a young kid, it can come up again 8, 10 or 15 years later. And that's something that a lot of young people do not know or don't realize. There's a simple rule: "If you don't want your parents to find it in the newspaper, don't put it on the internet."
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