Newsweek fires reporter Jennifer Kwong over ‘inaccurate’ Trump Thanksgiving story

December 2, 2019 | 10:29am
A Newsweek reporter was fired for writing an article that claimed President Trump would be “Tweeting, golfing and more” on Thanksgiving before the commander-in-chief made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan to visit US troops on the holiday.

Enlarge ImageJessica Kwong
Jessica KwongTwitter

The article by Jennifer Kwong was published Thursday morning before details of Trump’s Afghanistan trip became public.
The headline said, “How is Trump spending Thanksgiving? Tweeting, golfing and more.”
Both the president and his son, Donald Jr., blasted the publication for the mistake.
Newsweek told the Washington Examiner that an investigation was launched into “the failures that led to the publication of the inaccurate report.”
“The story has been corrected, and the journalist responsible has been terminated. We will continue to review our processes and, if required, take further action,” Newsweek said.
Kwong on Sunday told the newspaper that she was assigned to write a story about Trump’s Thanksgiving Day plans.
She said she later contacted the editor on duty when news of Trump’s Afghanistan stop became public to say her story should be updated.
But Kwong said that the editor assigned another reporter to write a new story and failed to update the initial story with the development.
The new story changed the headline – “How is Trump spending Thanksgiving? Tweeting, golfing – and surprising US troops in Afghanistan” – and included a note.
“This story has been substantially updated and edited at 6:17 p.m. EST to reflect the president’s surprise trip to Afghanistan. Additional reporting by James Crowley,” it said.

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Kwong went on social media to say it has been “an honest mistake” and deleted a tweetpromoting the original story.