The Associated Press urges the governor of Florida. Ron DeSantis
Ron DeSantisSouth Carolina GOP will host a Myrtle Beach event that will show aspirants in 2024 that Florida’s largest school district is imposing masks to challenge DeSantis. (R) intervened after he reported that his press secretary’s conduct caused a PA journalist to receive threats and other abuses online, according to the PA.
AP CEO Daisy Veerasingham wrote to DeSantis on Friday asking her to take action against assistant Christina Pushaw’s “harassing behavior,” the news organization reported.
Twitter recently suspended Pushaw’s account for violating rules on “abusive behavior” because of his conduct toward journalist Brendan Farrington, the AP noted.
“Will you ban the press secretary of a democratically elected official while allowing the Taliban to live out their conquest of Afghanistan?” Pushaw said in response to the suspension, the AP reported.
Pushaw denied any wrongdoing against Farrington despite retweeting his article with the caption “drag them” in a post that has since been deleted, according to the AP. In the story Pushaw retweeted, Farrington noted that one of DeSantis’ multimillion-dollar donors is investing in a company that makes the drug for the treatment of the Regeneron coronavirus, which the governor has been announcing statewide.
Farrington tweeted Wednesday that he had received online threats about the story, according to the AP.
“For your own good, I hope the government doesn’t threaten your security. I’ll be fine, I hope. Freedom. Just don’t kill me,” Farrington wrote.
The reporter’s Twitter account is now private.
Pushaw said the tweet was not meant to be a violent threat that caused people to abuse Farrington.
“As soon as Farrington told me he had received threats, I tweeted that no one should threaten anyone, which is totally unacceptable,” Pushaw told the AP. “I have also urged him to report any threats to the police.”
AP Vice President and Managing Editor Brian Carovillano said Pushaw’s tweets were especially relevant because she is a government official whose job she works with the press.
“There is a setback, which we fully accept and which is a common facet of being a political reporter or any kind of journalist, and there is harassment,” Carovillano told the AP. “This is not a setback, it’s harassment. It’s harassment. Trolls someone who has just done their job and is putting himself and his family at risk.”