DES MOINES, IA — There’s a reason “no good deed goes unpunished” is a cliche. No one illustrates that phrase more than 24-year-old Carson King, an average guy from Iowa who has raised more than $1 million to help some very sick kids — all because he hoisted a sign before a nationwide television audience that asked for money to replenish his Busch Light beer supply.
The money began gushing in, and King’s wish for cash to buy suds turned into something more meaningful — turning over the donations he received to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. Anheuser-Busch, which brews Busch Light, jumped on board and offered to match the money sent to King. The brewing giant even branded a year’s worth of Busch Light — 720 cans — with King’s photo and crowned him an “Iowa legend.”
The digital payments app Venmo, which King used to accept donations, also pledged matching contributions. King, a casino security guard, was feeling good about all the good his beer joke would do to help the critically and terminally ill kids at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital.
And then it all went flat.
The Des Moines Register dug into King’s background for a profile and unearthed a couple of racially charged tweets he made in 2012, as a 16-year-old high-school sophomore. The tweets, quoting the Comedy Central television program “Tosh.0,” compared black mothers to gorillas and made light of black Holocaust victims.
The backlash against King was swift.
The backlash against The Des Moines Register may have been swifter still.
Anheuser-Busch distanced itself from King with the thundering power of a team of Budweiser Clydesdales.
“Carson King had multiple social media posts that do not align with our values as a brand or as a company and we will have no further association with him,” the brewer said in a statement to news station KCCI. “We are honoring our commitment by donating more than $350,000 to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.”
Related: Game-Day Sign For Beer A Beacon For Some Very Sick Kids
In a statement posted by WHO-TV, King apologized for his old tweets, which he has deleted, and said he’s “embarrassed and stunned to reflect on what I thought was funny when I was a 16-year-old.”
King said he had forgotten about the tweets until the reporter brought them up.
“In rereading those it today — eight years later — I see it was an attempt at humor that was offensive and hurtful,” he said.
A better representation of his views about race, he said, is a tweet three years ago: “Until we as a people learn that racism and hate are learned behaviors, we won’t get rid of it. Tolerance towards others is the first step.”
Social media users and others are flogging The Des Moines Register over its decision to report on King’s old tweets — made as a 16-year-old who wasn’t a public figure then and arguably isn’t a public figure now. If all the people saying on social media they’ll cancel their subscriptions make good on their threats, the Register won’t need to print nearly as many papers.
Carol Hunter, the Register’s executive editor, said in a statement Tuesday that reporting on the old tweets fit into the view that “some of the toughest decisions in journalism are what to publish — or not” and that “such decisions are not made lightly and are rooted in what we perceive as the public good.”
For King’s defenders, there’s a delicious bit of irony.
Social media users outraged by the report did their own digging and found some tweets by the Register reporter that used racial slurs, joked about abusing women, used the word “gay” as a pejorative and said he was “totally going to marry a horse” after the legalization of gay marriage.
Patch is not using the name of the reporter, whose LinkedIn profile shows him to be a journalist since 2014, because the reporter is not commenting beyond a statement and because the circumstances surrounding his own tweets, including how old he was when he sent them, are unknown.
They have been deleted and the reporter has locked his account, but before that happened, The Washington Post and other news organizations obtained screenshots.
“Hey, just wanted to say I have deleted previous tweets that have been inappropriate or insensitive,” the reporter tweeted before locking his account. “I apologize for not holding myself to the same standards as the Register holds others.”
Hunter told The Washington Post that the Register is investigating its reporter, but declined further comment.