After tweeting out Lena Dunham’s voter registration, and calling into question her claim to have voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, Vice reporter Michael Tracey was fired on Friday.
Sadly @VICE has severed its relationship with me for reporting that multi-millionaire Clinton surrogate @lenadunham deceived the public.
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 11, 2016
Heat Street also did a story looking at whether Dunham was fudging the truth when she said she voted in the Democratic primary. New York is a closed primary state, so when Tracey discovered Dunham was not registered with a party he made the connection that her claim to have voted in the Democratic primary could not have been true. In the case of our story, Dunham herself responded, claiming that while she used to be registered as an independent, she was a registered Democrat for the primary and voted.
I DID vote and am a registered Democrat. I used to be a registered independent before my “political awakening.”
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 8, 2016
The verdict on Twitter is that Tracey was fired for publishing Dunham’s personal address. Although the purchase of her home in 2014 was widely covered in the tabloids and easily accessible to anyone with Google, respectable publications almost never dox a subject. It is not necessary to post the home address of a celebrity once a news outlet has satisfied themselves where that person lives. Tracey could, clearly, have just reported that he had looked up her home address. The comment Dunham gave to Heat Street contradicts Tracey’s claim, so the question arises – did he actually seek comment from her first?
To those who hilariously claim this is “doxing” — Dunham’s address was widely reported after she bought her $4.8 million Brooklyn property pic.twitter.com/D42EQUHkYa
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 8, 2016
He appears to acknowledge that he should not have posted the address, but does not believe it was a fireable offense.
@libbycwatson @itwasthreezero ok. Cause for termination though? Please.
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 11, 2016
This post will be updated if/when Vice or Dunham comment on the situation, for now only Tracey’s side of the story is public.
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