The Mirror

BuzzFeed: HuffPo Reporter Is ‘Too Dumb To Function’

Betsy Rothstein Gossip blogger
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BuzzFeed has placed HuffPost reporter Ryan J. Reilly on a very important list today. It’s their “too dumb to function” list.

Reilly made the list for recently confusing earplugs for rubber bullets while covering the riots in Ferguson, Mo. As some may recall, he was detained for approximately 45 minutes with WaPo‘s egomaniacal Wesley Lowery, who was shoved up against a soda machine in a McDonald’s, where the pair were filing stories.

(As for Reilly’s screwup, hey, rubber bullets could be fluorescent orange, right? He has since said he was “exhausted” when he wrote the now infamous tweet.)

Reilly rolled in at number 28, but BuzzFeed is extremely generous with him — they cover up his name and Twitter avatar to spare him some embarrassment.

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To be expected, Reilly’s HuffPost‘s outraged colleagues came out to defend him on Twitter.

“Rude!” declared HuffPost‘s Elise Foley.

BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith remarked, “Hope @ryanjreilly will take it in the spirit offered, though it’ll be hard to surpass this.”

HuffPost‘s Amanda Terkel asked, “So at BuzzFeed, putting someone on a ‘too dumb’ list is a friendly thing to do?”

Smith replied, “It is perhaps not a deadly serious thing to do?”

Elise forged on. “I’m not massively outraged, but why protect his picture but show others (mostly teens) who will also recognize themselves?”

Smith defended the list, saying, “We took the names off, out of btw charity for people who were doing all this stuff in public.”

Elise questioned Smith’s editorial decision to publish the list in the first place (as if nothing HuffPost ever produces is questionable such as a story about red toilet paper that makes a person think they might be shitting blood, another on people who don’t use toilet paper or this one that tells you that bras help with sagging boobs).

“Sure. I just figure why not block out all the pictures?” wondered Elise. “I’m basically just not that into on this type of list in general.”

See the full 28-item list here.