If only you could place tweets in a time capsule.
After all, there’s no other media platform that better captured the hysterics over Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter — which rather undermined the histrionics, I must say. Every blue-check journalist who insisted the sky would fall because someone with a dedication to free speech bought their favorite social media platform was able to spread their febrile concerns on that platform.
One of those concerns was for the poor folks who’ll be laid off now that the Tesla and SpaceX founder now owns the platform. As of right now, the highest-profile Twitter employees to get the axe, according to The New York Times, are chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, head legal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett.
However, it’s difficult to muster sympathy for four people who will land on their feet inside Silicon Valley — and likely wouldn’t have to work another day in their lives even if they didn’t. What about the poor software engineers who are going to get canned? You can’t even tell them to “learn to code.” They already know how to — and now they’re going to miss their Tesla payments.
At this point, enter Deirdre Bosa, the CNBC reporter whose tweets I’d like to save in my theoretical time capsule.
You know that old reporter’s adage, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story”? On Friday, Bosa took that joke seriously and live-tweeted a group of poor Twitter data engineers who had been laid off during the “#TwitterTakeover” without confirming that they were, you know, actual Twitter employees.
This is Bosa at 10:09 Pacific Time outside Twitter headquarters in San Francisco: “It’s happening Entire team of data engineers let go. These are two of them,” she tweeted, along with a photo of two men with cardboard boxes.
It’s happening
Entire team of data engineers let go. These are two of them#TwitterTakeover pic.twitter.com/gNSl6qSCKU
— Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) October 28, 2022
Are you happy Elon Musk took over Twitter?
Yes: 100% (88 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
“They are visibly shaken. Daniel tells us he owns a Tesla and doesn’t know how he’s going to make payments,” Bosa tweeted four minutes later.
They are visibly shaken. Daniel tells us he owns a Tesla and doesn’t know how he’s going to make payments.
— Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) October 28, 2022
You may have guessed how this is going to end. Here’s Bosa at 11:00 a.m. sharp, throwing a little cold water on the initial story:
fyi -some questions being raised about whether these are really twitter employees.
Still trying to verify https://t.co/GbsWLW4nkk
— Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) October 28, 2022
Verifying whether these were Twitter employees might have been a good idea before that first tweet. That’s especially true when one of the employees gave the too-perfect sob story about missing Tesla payments. Or when the other had another too-perfect moment when he held up a copy of Michelle Obama’s autobiography. Or when the first told a reporter he has to “touch base with my husband and wife.”
.@dee_bosa I think you buried the story… As this former Twitter employee departs he says he has to “get home to his husband and wife” pic.twitter.com/UmpJMnbWQx
— Chaos Station (@ChaosBrewingNB) October 28, 2022
Or, perhaps Bosa could have looked up the names of the two data engineers supposedly laid off. They identified themselves as “Daniel Johnson” and “Rahul Ligma,” according to the New York Post. “Ligma,” for the uninitiated, is a hoax disease that’s become an internet meme for reasons that aren’t family-friendly and which I’ll leave for the reader to discover, should they wish to.
Suffice it to say that googling Mr. Ligma’s name would have led Bosa to realize she was being trolled right off the bat — and led to some amused reactions on Twitter, including from Elon Musk himself:
A CNBC reporter is currently trying to “verify” if a guy who told her his last name is Ligma is a real fired Twitter employee 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/hlXvFaBfWd
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 28, 2022
Ligma Johnson had it coming 🍆 💦 pic.twitter.com/CgjrOV5eM2
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
Just to be clear, Bosa wasn’t the only reporter to take the bait — but she was the one to bite hardest, and the only one who tweeted her abject failure to follow journalistic best practices in real time.
An hour after her initial tweet, Bosa said that “confusion reigns outside twitter HQ are people being let go? Are they trolling the media? … unfortunately corp comms isn’t returning calls.”
confusion reigns outside twitter HQ
are people being let go? Are they trolling the media?
…unfortunately corp comms isn’t returning calls
— Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) October 28, 2022
In a perfect world, this would have been the correct order to do it in:
- Talk to Messrs. Johnson and Ligma. Get quotes. Google their names to see if anything, you know, interesting comes up.
- Call Twitter communications and verify they were employees.
- Report story if it can be verified. Sit on it if it can’t be.
However, we live in a world where the mainstream media has taken the maxim “get it first, but first get it right” and chopped off the part after the comma, particularly when it involves figures unpopular with the establishment.
Sometimes, nobody notices. (See: Russiagate.) This time, not so much; the two men were revealed as pranksters.
It’s not happening.
These people don’t work at Twitter, @verge confirms.https://t.co/yyK16jqK4N https://t.co/CAqVUI8vNV
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) October 28, 2022
Bosa was a bit more equivocal about the error: “earlier today we reported on CNBC that a team of data engineers was let go at Twitter based on the account of 2 ppl who told us they were a part of that team,” she tweeted. “we have not been able to confirm that they were actual employees or that the co has laid off anyone today.”
earlier today we reported on CNBC that a team of data engineers was let go at Twitter based on the account of 2 ppl who told us they were a part of that team. we have not been able to confirm that they were actual employees or that the co has laid off anyone today https://t.co/GbsWLW4nkk
— Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) October 28, 2022
Way to own it.
It’s probably unfair to dunk solely on Bosa, considering her reporting is in line with every unsubstantiated angle we’ve heard from the media about the Musk takeover of Twitter. Basically, if one were to believe the narrative, Elon is prepared to fire everyone at the company who’s politically left of Mussolini and replace them with card-carrying members of the Proud Boys, turning the blue-check journo paradise into a Nazi-infested hellscape.
That said, Bosa is the human manifestation of that narrative and how rigged the mainstream journalism game is. Now that the libs aren’t running the joint at Twitter, everyone in the media seems to be Chicken Little with a microphone and a camera. Is there reason to panic? Who cares? Just panic. If everyone’s wrong, nobody’s going to notice — right?
Not this time, alas.
