Shaun King became one of social media’s most visible voices as it relates to the struggles of Black people in America due to his relentless pursuit of justice and truth. That same tenacity culminated into King’s ability to raise funds at a rapid clip but the author and activist once again is under fire for allegedly misusing funds intended for an ambitious media project.
The Daily Beast published a story of the weekend that examined King and journalist Benjamin Dixon’s plan to relaunch The North Star, a newspaper originally stared by the late abolitionist, Frederick Douglass. According to the reporting done by Kali Holloway, King’s failures of relaunching the paper in the year and more after the plan was announced was an ability to handle the responsibilities if King’s quotes ring true.
“When we launched The North Star, virtually every advisor I had insisted that we should not do written articles, podcasts, and video news at the same time,” King said to the reporter back in April. “I just knew we could do it. They were right.”
Despite the transparency surrounding his failure to get the paper up and running, his statement did little to explain why the paper’s television studio and headquarters were closed down nor did it effectively reveal why King laid off all Atlanta-based staffers at The North Star. With the accounts of seven former employees of King, including three who chose to speak off the record, the views of the staffers paint a damning picture of alleged mismanagement and, simply put, an inability to handle the duties of a publisher.
The piece is packed with accounts from the former staffers, activists that worked in some fashion with King such as DeRay McKesson, and accounts from other observers and critics alike.
Across Twitter, King’s name has been trending since the publishing of the article and has garnered a public response from King himself.
“Literally at the airport rushing to be with my mother, who is in the hospital in Atlanta, and just now seeing that I am trending, again, here on Twitter. I’ll reply when I can. So much blatant misinformation,” King tweeted on Tuesday morning (May 26).
