A RADIO personality in Nebraska was fired after posting an offensive tweet about the George Floyd case.
Radio station KFAB, based in Omaha, terminated the employment of Chris Baker on April 21, 2021.
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Why was Omaha radio personality Chris Baker fired?
The tweet posted by conservative radio personality Chris Baker included a GIF of four black men wearing loincloths and body paint, according to the Omaha World-Herald.
Above the photo was the word: "Guilty!"
Baker posted the tweet after Derek Chauvin was found guilty of multiple charges in the murder of George Floyd on April 20. Chauvin faces 75 years in prison.
The radio personality deleted the tweet that night but was dismissed the next day.
"We are aware of the completely inappropriate and unacceptable tweet that was posted late Tuesday afternoon," C. Taylor Walet III of Nebraska for iHeartRadio said in a statement.
"Please know that this does not represent our viewpoint or our values, and we take this situation very seriously.
"Accordingly, Chris Baker’s employment with our company has been terminated."
Nebraska State Senator John McCollister, a Republican, said Baker needs to be held responsible for the tweet.
"If we want the Republican party to be viable again we must take a stand against hateful messages like this," McCollister told 3 News Now.
"We all have a responsibility, particularly radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, to present information in a fair and balanced way.
"But, like I said, this particular tweet crossed the line."
What did Chris Baker say about the tweet?
Baker told the Omaha World-Herald that the tweet was a “boomer Twitter moment.”
“That’s not me, that’s not who I really am,” he told the newspaper.
He said he mistakenly chose the wrong image while doing many things at once and tried to remove the tweet quickly, but struggled to do so.
When asked if the tweet was racist, he told the World-Herald: “It’s horrible is what it was."
“There’s a difference between being intentional and being a fat-fingered boomer on Twitter.
"I don’t look at black people that way.”
He said he was looking for an image of "people celebrating."
However, he said he did not expect people to believe him.
“I apologize for a stupid move. I apologize for the mistake," he told the newspaper.
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