The Weather Channel Apologizes for Biting Comment on Burns' Advocacy
- Staff Reporter
- May 13, 2014 03:02 PM EDT
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Unfortunately for The Weather Channel, what began as a criticism and request has now escalated into a full-blown social media frenzy.
After a biting comment from The Weather Channel's Twitter account which sarcastically attacked the Councilman's anti-bullying advocacy, the network is now doing damage control. In an apology, The Weather Channel says:
"This morning one of our team members used sarcasm in an unfortunate and unacceptable way on our Twitter account. ... It was not our intention to offend and we are sorry that we did," said the statement. "We have since apologized to Councilman Burns and want to restate that sincere apology and assure him that this tweet does not represent our views. In fact, this is the opposite of how we want to interact with our fans, as we value their input on any occasion. We are taking the necessary steps to be sure something like this does not occur again."
The apology comes after Councilman Joel Burns of Fort Worth City made a request on Monday to The Weather Channel via Twitter to change its photos for its Fort Worth City forecasts as the images used were of the Dallas area.
The tweet posted along with two photos said: "Dear @weatherchannel I SWEAR I'm deleting your aggravating app if you don't STOP SHOWING DALLAS pics for Fort Worth."
Within the hour, the Councilman then deleted the app from his mobile device and posted another photo with the caption: "Hey snoozing @weatherchannel social media team, see anything missing now?"
The response of The Weather Channel's account? "@JoelBurns Sorry to see you go. Good luck on ending bullying."
Nice jab @weatherchannel Pls fix the app. RT"@weatherchannel: @JoelBurns Sorry to see you go. Good luck on ending bullying."
— Councilm. Joel Burns (@JoelBurns) May 12, 2014
Burns then reiterated his request to fix the app and retweeted the response. The Weather Channel has received a lot of criticism on the way it handled the issue and the snarky response its employee supplied.
Burns is the first openly gay Councilman of the city and an advocate of anti-bullying. To divert attention and calm the storm, the Councilman has asked the network to donate $100,000 to the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network and The Trevor Project, to which he will add $1,000 as well.
To date, there is no indication from The Weather Channel if they will take up the call for a donation.
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