Thread by @MesMitch

More than 300 Washington Post staff reject reporter's suspension over tweet
Letter from union expresses ‘alarm and dismay’ at action
Felicia Sonmez tweeted article on Kobe Bryant rape allegation

An internal revolt is building inside one of the nation’s top newspapers after hundreds of journalists at the Washington Post came out publicly against a decision to suspend a reporter for tweeting an article about Kobe Bryant’s historical rape accusation hours after his death.

Before the letter was shared on Monday, the Post’s opinion section also published an article by its own media critic slamming the move. “If journalists at The Post are prone to suspension for tweeting stories off their beats,

the entire newsroom should be on administrative leave,” wrote the critic, Erik Wemple.

Shortly after Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter, Sonmez shared on Twitter a 2016 Daily Beast article, which revisited the 2003 rape accusation against Bryant made by a 19-year-old receptionist at a Colorado hotel.

The teenager had told local police she had been raped in Bryant’s hotel room but ultimately declined to testify in a criminal case. Bryant has always insisted the encounter was consensual and said in an apology:

“Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.”

After sharing the story, Sonmez faced swift backlash online, including from the US president’s son Donald Trump Jr, who said: “You Washington Post reporters really can’t help yourselves, can you?”

Sonmez told Wemple, the media critic, that someone had posted her home address online and that the newspaper’s managing editor, Tracy Grant, had told her in an email that the Post’s concerns with the tweets were that they didn’t “pertain” to the reporter’s “coverage area”.

Grant told Sonmez: “Your behavior on social media is making it harder for others to do their work as Washington Post journalists,” according to Wemple.

Grant said in a statement that Sonmez had been placed on administrative leave while the paper reviewed whether her tweets violated the company’s social media policy. “The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues,” Grant said.

In a letter to Grant, and the Post’s editor-in-chief, Marty Baron, the Washington Post Guild said Sonmez left her home out of fear for her safety because of threats she received in response to the tweet “and has gotten insufficient guidance from The Post on how to protect herself

WaPo reporters further criticized the decision on Twitter.

Amber Phillips a reporter at the Post, shared the Guild statement on Twitter and said she would not be posting on the social media website any more until the Post clarified its social media policy and brought Sonmez back