Newsweek is taking a pounding in the new year for tweeting a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his casket.
The photo accompanied a tweet on Monday saying, “Has anyone here seen my old friend Martin?” and linking to a month-old blog post on notable anniversaries of 2018.
After King’s daughter, Bernice, tweeted: “Why, @Newsweek? Wow.” the news outlet removed the tweet and posted an apology:
But the damage was done, and Newsweek began hearing about it from all over the Twitterverse and beyond.
Said one respondent: "I give @BerniceKing all the credit for her grace in handling this. I know for a fact that if someone did to me what @Newsweek did to her and her family, I would have lost every bit of my mind."
Said another: “Your actions seemed malicious, intentionally insensitive, and downright evil. Wasn't the title Has Anyone Seen My Old Friend Martin with the pix of Dr. King in the coffin? When your tweet showed up I refused to open it and was instantly repulsed and shakened. This was no error!
Bernice King later tweeted: “What a way to start the new year #Newsweek, #MLK50Forward, #BelovedCommunity.”
And even later: “Thank you for the kind words that you shared with me today. Let’s turn the world right-side-up in 2018.”
The tweet linked to a Dec. 1 blog post on the Council on Foreign Relations website about anniversaries in 2018. April 4 this year will be the 50th anniversary of King's assassination.
