The ‘Kenosha News’ Loses Its Only Full-Time Black Journalist

Editor Daniel J. Thompson objected to a headline in his own paper. It changed only after he quit.

The Kenosha News, a daily local newspaper with a print circulation of about 20,000, published an article on August 23 covering a rally for Jacob Blake, who had been shot seven times by a Kenosha police officer last week. The headline read: “Kenosha speaker: ‘If you kill one of us, it’s time for us to kill one of yours.”

Daniel J. Thompson, the paper’s digital editor and only Black full-time staff member, objected to the headline, which he felt didn’t reflect the rally’s tenor. He alerted the executive editor and received a blunt response, reported the New York Times.

Mr. Thompson, 30, said he attended the Saturday rally but did not cover it. Shortly after 7 p.m. that day, he sent a text that included a screenshot of the headline to Bob Heisse, the executive editor of The Kenosha News.

“I don’t even know if I can associate with the company after that,” Mr. Thompson said in the text exchange. “I need to calm down, but I wanted you to know immediately.”

According to a screenshot provided by Mr. Thompson, Mr. Heisse responded, “Yes you should calm down. That is a public threat, and it is an exact quote at a rally that was to that point totally on message.”

Mr. Thompson replied: “Then I quit.”