Idris Muktar: How Kenyan journalist lost CNN job over tweets from when he was 15 years old

A Kenyan journalist based in the United States has come out to narrate how two tweets he shared in 2014 came to haunt and cost him his dream job last month.

Idris Muktar Ibrahim was a producer with CNN International, based in the network’s headquarters in Atlanta and working on stories from all around the globe.

In a piece published by Saturday Nation, Ibrahim shares how he grew from a young boy in Korogocho slums in Nairobi, to living his dream life in the US.

Ibrahim gained a footing in journalism as a 19-year-old undergraduate on scholarship at the United States International University – Africa. He says he was inspired to take up the profession after meeting a reporter on assignment in their slum.

In 2020, he joined Deutsche Welle as a junior correspondent for East Africa, after which he got another scholarship, this time to the University of California, Berkeley, to pursue a Journalism and Documentary Master's programme.

After graduating in May this year, he was offered a job by CNN as Newsdesk Producer on the network's international desk.

Trouble began with a story he contributed to about the Israeli elections, when a pro-Israeli media watchdog, Honest Reporting, decided to investigate him.

“They dug deep into my tweets from when I was still a teen in the slums in July 2014 and found two that were, in my opinion, wholly abhorrent and unacceptable,” says Muktar.

In one of the tweets brought forth by the organisation, Muktar supported Germany’s Bayern Munich, and seemed to be in support of Adolf Hitler.

“I have shifted to team Germany after finding out that Messi supports Israel #teamHitler,” reads the tweet sent on July 13, 2014.

“Modern day freedpm [sic] fighters, they definding [sic] their land. Yes they are entitled to their armed struggle,” he said in the other.

According to Muktar, the organisation called his employer, calling for his firing. The broadcaster complied.

“I don't blame my former employer, to be honest. As the world's leading news network, they cannot have someone in their employment tweeting vile bigotry,” he says, adding that the watchdog also reached out to various outlets to retract the awards they had given him.

While admitting that he does not in any way dislike Israel, Jews or support anti-semitism, the journalist says the tweets were just a product of his support for Bayern Munich, laced with ignorance.

“Like many Africans, I was not exposed to historical facts such as the Holocaust. Growing up in a post-colonial Kenya, where my grandparents and their families went through horrible crimes from the colonialism masters, and where marginalisation and incessant genocidal-style massacres were still rife, we were so busy entangled in our struggles and freedom.

Still, I would have never condoned such historical facts as what happened to the Jews. Grappling with the rise of social media, we tweeted in ignorance, yet had I been appropriately exposed, I would have never tweeted such things,” he says.

In the piece, Ibrahim takes issue with modern-day’s Cancel Culture, which he terms as “crowd attempts to end an individual's career for violating moral norms considered popular in some circles or societies.”

“Many journalists like me today have been cancelled because of an old tweet or something they said before. Aren't we all human beings subject to evolving and changing opinions? Isn't Cancel Culture an attempt to shut all of us, curtailing the progress made on free speech?” he poses.

Following his dismissal last month, the journalist shared a note on Twitter reflecting on his experience. He says he regrets writing the “hurtful and ignorant” tweets and apologises to the Jewish Community.

“I was young, new to social media, and blurted out inconsiderately. I am not a hateful person and I have learnt and evolved a lot since that time,” the note reads in part.