MSNBC’s Joy Reid claimed on Monday that homophobic content from her old blog was “fabricated” by outside sources and added to the site after she shut it down, with all the content mysteriously disappearing from internet archives.
Mediaite reported last December that Reid had posted a series of anti-gay articles on her blog, the Reid Report, and Reid offered an apology via Facebook shortly thereafter, taking full responsibility for them.
This note is my apology to all who are disappointed by the content of blogs I wrote a decade ago, for which my choice of words and tone have legitimately been criticized.
As a writer, I pride myself on a facility with language — an economy of words or at least some wisdom in the selection. However, that clearly has not always been the case.
But Twitter user @Jamie_Maz recently unearthed several more of the posts, and each one appeared to be worse than the last.
Thread – 1/x Joy Reid’s homophobic blog posts were far worse than 1st reported.
They also had nothing to do with Republican hypocrisy on gay marriage. Joy also opposed gay marriage at the time. She gleefully accused people of being gay and posted a number of questionable things. pic.twitter.com/ZloivXczTS
— Not a bot (@Jamie_Maz) April 18, 2018
2/x Top 5 “totally not gay celebrities of the year”.
Using your media platform to out people you think is gay to get clicks has nothing to do with Republicans hypocrisy on gay marriage. pic.twitter.com/0B921itHkj
— Not a bot (@Jamie_Maz) April 18, 2018
3/x Joy writes that @karlrove is known as Miss Piggy in Washington DC’s gay circles. Claims he is a leader of the gay Republican mafia.
Joy re-posted this “reidblog classics” at the end of the year for her readers’ enjoyment. pic.twitter.com/mFTvApK0VX
— Not a bot (@Jamie_Maz) April 18, 2018
But then @Jamie_Maz noticed something even more disturbing: the links to the blog were disappearing from the internet archive site The Wayback Machine.
7/x in the last few months the site was removed from the Wayback Machine on Internet Archive at the request of whoever controls the blog, from what I understand.
These screenshots were taken before it came downhttps://t.co/5bxkkYLGR6 pic.twitter.com/TFk2vv48Xk
— Not a bot (@Jamie_Maz) April 18, 2018
Wow, the @internetarchive is removing documentation of @JoyAnnReid‘s homophobic slurs and insults. https://t.co/4CFH2QfRfN pic.twitter.com/S0dQj2zfaU
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 24, 2018
Reid provided an updated statement to Mediaite, saying, “Now that the site has been compromised I can state unequivocally that it does not represent the original entries. I hope that whoever corrupted the site recognizes the pain they have caused, not just to me, but to my family and communities that I care deeply about: LGBTQ, immigrants, people of color and other marginalized groups.”