Minneapolis city officials said Monday they’ve ditched plans to hire social media influencers to spin news from the upcoming murder trial of ex-cop Derek Chauvin in George Floyd’s death.
Lawmakers, who approved a plan last week to hire six social media wizzes for $2,000 each to report developments from the potentially volatile trial, said community backlash over being targeted by city-funded “influencers” made the city council rethink the idea.
“A lot of folks saw that language and for whatever reason didn’t register that it was such a bad idea,” Minneapolis Councilman Jeremiah Ellison acknowledged to KARE-TV.
“It’s a relatively small deal, especially since we’re not moving forward with the program anymore,” he said. “But we also owe our respective apologies to our communities over that.”