Dan Levin, a New York Times reporter, put out a blast on Twitter asking for personal stories for a piece he’s writing about a campaign to “#ExposeChristianSchools,” a new social media tirade that's taken off in the wake of recent “news” that for the past 12 years, Second Lady Karen Pence has been teaching art at a private D.C. school that doesn't accept homosexual behavior in keeping with their Christian faith.
Levin posted on Twitter Thursday:
And it's pretty safe to say, people weren't having it.
My Catholic college had the gall to give me a solid education and professional opportunities
— Kate Scanlon (@kgscanlon) January 25, 2019
Just a hunch, but this will be a largely, if not exclusively, negative hit job on Christian schools#Judeophobia, meet #Christianophobia
— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) January 24, 2019
I went to Catholic school Dan. No one molested me. I learned way more than I did in my two years in public school. Want to talk about it?
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia) January 25, 2019
Honest question: is fishing for stories like this considered proper journalism?
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) January 24, 2019
This is basically confirmation bias in the raw uncut form.
I’d be happy to share my great experience and the moral values I was taught that I continue to carry on throughout my life today. Will these actually be reported on, or just the negative ones that you hear?
— Tristen Groff (@tristengroffmn) January 24, 2019
As of Friday morning, Levin’s tweet had garnered more than 8,500 responses compared with only 1,700 “likes,” a phenomenon commonly referred to on Twitter as a “ratio” that indicates a tweet isn’t being very well received.
Now, to be fair, Levin didn’t necessarily say flat-out that he's planning to write negatively about the social media campaign or Christian schools in general. However, given the New York Times’ less-than-flattering coverage of Ms. Pence’s volunteer activities -- and Levin's suggestively-worded request for personal accounts -- it’s fair to assume a heavily biased approach is forthcoming.