The controversy over a Washington Post reporter’s Kobe Bryant tweets, explained

The controversy over bringing up the rape allegation against Kobe Bryant after his death highlights the difficulty of remembering complex figures.

The Washington Post has suspended a reporter who posted a series of tweets about the 2003 rape allegation against basketball star Kobe Bryant after his death on Sunday. The incident has stirred up controversy over how we remember complicated public figures, even as circumstances around the suspension remain unclear.

Bryant, 41, and one of his daughters, 13-year-old Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant, were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, on Sunday morning. News of the crash prompted an outpouring of emotion across the country and the world, but it was also met with reminders of a darker part of Bryant’s past: namely, the rape case brought against him more than 15 years ago. Felicia Sonmez, a reporter at the Washington Post, was one of many people to bring up the incident.

Initially, she tweeted out a link to a 2016 story from the Daily Beast about the case hours after Bryant’s death. Later, she tweeted about the apparent backlash she had received over the tweet. “Well, THAT was eye-opening,” she wrote, saying that 10,000 people had commented and emailed her with “abuse and death threats.” She noted that she did not write the story and that it’s more than three years old. “Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality even if that public figure is beloved and that totality unsettling,” she continued.

Later, she went on to post a screenshot of her inbox, with one message to her reading: “Piece of fucking shit. Go fuck yourself. Cunt.”

The tweets have since been deleted, but the controversy around them — and Sonmez’s employer’s handling of them — has continued to swirl.

The circumstances around Sonmez’s suspension are murky

“National political reporter Felicia Sonmez was placed on administrative leave while the Post reviews whether tweets about the death of Kobe Bryant violated the Post newsroom’s social media policy. The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues,” said Tracy Grant, the managing editor of the Washington Post, in a statement, which does not provide a lot of clarity on the matter.

The Daily Mail was first to report Sonmez’s suspension on Sunday evening and suggested the decision had been made because of her tweet linking to the Daily Beast story. However, reporter Matthew Keys later reported that it was instead tied to Sonmez’s inbox screenshot tweet, because it contained the full names of the people who had emailed her and could create legal issues or violate Twitter’s terms of service.

A Post employee told Vox’s Peter Kafka that Sonmez wasn’t suspended because of one particular Bryant-related tweet but instead because of the totality of them.

Kafka asked the Post whether the outlet is reacting to the online mob angered by Sonmez’s treatment of a popular sports star. Kris Coratti, head of communications at the Post, pushed back. “That’s not at all what Tracy said, and that’s not at all accurate,” Coratti said.

Sonmez did not return a request for comment. A spokesperson for Twitter did not return a request for comment on whether any of Sonmez’s tweets may have violated its terms of service.

There’s a broader discussion about how we remember complicated figures after they die

Sonmez’s tweets did, indeed, spark an enormous backlash online. Thousands of people responded to her Daily Beast tweet with outrage, while others came to her defense.

There is a bigger debate beyond the circumstances of Sonmez’s tweets: How do we talk about revered figures when they die, including the good and the bad?

Sonmez is hardly the only person to mention the allegation against Bryant in the wake of his death. Plenty of other people did the same and did not get the same amount of backlash; many of the posters were men, and men often don’t experience the same amount of vitriol online as their female counterparts.

Also, it’s a tough subject: The helicopter crash is a tragic incident, Bryant leaves behind his family and friends, and he is a beloved figure to many. His family is grieving, and taking to Twitter to talk about a dark part of his past can appear insensitive. At the same time, the rape allegation against him is part of his narrative, and just because he did a lot of good things and was great at basketball doesn’t mean we should never speak of other aspects of his life. That’s perhaps especially true for reporters.

It’s a question we face after the death of many public figures. Sen. John McCain was a war hero and a political powerhouse, but he also put Sarah Palin on the national stage, among other controversies. Being a public figure is complicated, and those complications happen in our private lives, too.

Beyond the ins and outs of the debate around the sensitivity of tweets like Sonmez’s, the Post’s decision to suspend her is perplexing, as is its murky reasoning. Journalists are supposed to be dedicated to the truth and shining light on things that are sometimes ugly and painful. The Post should recognize that — or at the very least have an explanation beyond seemingly responding to a Twitter mob.

Peter Kafka contributed reporting to this story.