CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins faces accusations of seven-year-old homophobic tweets

CNN's Kaitlan Collins asks President Trump questions in the White House Rose Garden on October 1st. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)

Erik Wemple

Criticism of the media focusing on the ups and downs of the cable industry.

Sunday evening, the Republican Log Cabin Twitter Account revealed the results of an investigation into the statements of Kaitlan Collins, correspondent of the rising star at the White House on CNN:

The tweets in question are seven years old; Collins is 26 years old. She comes from her years as a student at the University of Alabama. One of them uses the word "swatter" and the other says "Idk if I want to have a room with a lesbian". Twitter BioLog Cabin Republicans is the "largest Republican organization dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives and allies".

The tweets of the archives made a huge splash on Collins on Twitter on Sunday night, as critics caught the apparent contradiction that a CNN journalist had a blemish on his school record. similar period in his life. Collins is excused:

A sincere apology in 2018, however, can not compete with political anger. Look at these answers:

Nothing breathes.

Collins arrived at CNN from the conservative The Daily Caller website. According to a short biography, Collins "covered the 2016 presidential campaign for the site owned by Tucker Carlson, while directing the media's entertainment coverage." On this last front, Collins has written light content, such as Jennifer Lopez shows a lot of skin these days; how there are "nine hotties" named Autumn; and how people should celebrate Oktoberfest with "hot women and beer".

Still at the Daily Caller, Collins covered the Trump White House. Her move to CNN was announced in June 2017 and she did an excellent job of putting pressure on the president and his lieutenants on the issues of the day. When announcing a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico last week, she strongly criticized the president for her insistence on asking a question about the Kavanaugh controversy. The president treated him roughly.

Gregory T. Angelo, president of Log Cabin Republicans, told Erik Wemple: "The left has made it clear that past statements and even tweets are things that speak to people's character. "And there [are] cases where previous tweets have said much less than what Ms. Collins has destroyed the Republicans' career, "said Angelo. Angelo cited as an example the case of a staff member of Jeb Bush who, according to his recollection, was sent back on a tweet explaining that the men of a gym in San Francisco "undress your eyes". But there were several other offensive comments, as Gawker noted.

The timing of the Log Cabin Republicans tweet about Collins was not special, Angelo said. This was not an answer to the controversy over Kavanaugh, despite the inferences that many derive from responsibility for mistakes made by young people. Angelo says that there are "differences in the way contrition is treated in the United States today" – leftist people receiving forgiveness and those on the right bearing the event as a " albatross".

To complement the ironies of this episode, CNN hosts the "KFile" reporting center, headed by former BuzzFeed digital archive magician Andrew Kaczynski. The search for old tweets, old videos and old blog posts is the specialty of this group, which has to its credit a number of negative actions carried out by the staff of Trump.

Twitter's archives can hurt. Sarah Jeong survived a violent reaction after humiliating old tweets about whites after being hired for a position on the New York Times editorial board. Kevin Williamson, meanwhile, lost his new position in the Atlantic after the publication learned an old tweet in which the conservative writer claimed that "hanging" was a possible punishment for abortion.

The blog Erik Wemple asked CNN if she would make a statement going beyond Collins' apology. Matt Dornic, Vice President of Communications and Digital Partnerships for the company, tweeted:

Unlike Bill Maher, the blog Erik Wemple has always believed in hermetic excuses, and Collins made that point.