J-School Buzz, a student-run blog that covers news pertaining to the MU School of Journalism, published a controversial tweet following Missouri men’s basketball’s loss to Kansas on Saturday.
The tweet read, “Let’s burn down Lawrence again. Who’s with us? #borderwar.”
J-School Buzz had originally published a more explicit tweet that read, “Fuck it. Let’s burn down Lawrence a second time. #borderwar.” That tweet was later deleted and replaced with the second tweet.
The tweet was in reference to “Bleeding Kansas,” the violent battle over whether Kansas would enter the union as a free state or slave state. The violence took place from 1854 until the outbreak of the Civil War.
Many of the men fighting for slavery were Missouri residents, and the “Border War” rivalry between MU and KU stems from the fighting.
JSB’s founder and publisher David Teeghman, who sent the tweet, said it was not designed to offend anyone.
“We don’t seriously advocate for burning down Lawrence,” he said. “We were just saying that playfully to show our passion.”
Regarding the Twitter incident, both JSB Editor-in-Chief Ali Colwell and Social Media Editor Shannon Elliott declined to comment.
Teeghman said the historical rivalry was what made it unique.
“We were fighting between abolitionists and slavery, and (MU) was totally on the wrong side of history,” Teeghman said.
Many Twitter users responded to the tweet. Although Teeghman said none of the negative responses to the tweet were from MU students, MU senior Mila Mimica responded with, “really? #smh (shaking my head)” via her personal Twitter account regarding the tweet.
KU fans also responded to the tweet, such as Carolyn Battle, a KU student.
“On a serious note, predicting someone getting fired over this,” she said on her personal Twitter account. “Stay classy, MU J-school. … You’ll know which tweet @jschoolbuzz.”
Teeghman also said none of the users that responded to the tweet were upset.
“We have not heard any suggestion that people were upset,” he said.
JSB sent two tweets on Sunday regarding the original tweet.
“We just interviewed with @TheManeater, which thinks we were serious in that tweet about burning Lawrence down. For the record: we’re not.” This tweet was published around 4 p.m. and was followed closely by “But if anyone out there did take our tweet seriously, um, please don’t burn down Lawrence. That’s not nice, even if it’s kansas (sic).”
Teeghman said JSB does not strive to be objective. According to the JSB website, the “blog will always have a distinct ‘voice’ in its content.”
“There are plenty of media outlets that objectivity is their goal,” Teeghman said. “We very much operate differently. We want to show that we are very passionate about what we’re talking about.”
Teeghman said JSB contributors do not attempt to hide their emotions.
“JSB is very much a publication guided by its passion and its emotion,” he said. “We wear our hearts on our sleeves. Whatever our subject is, you know where we stand.”