Jon ronson justine sacco biography

Jon Ronson

AP Images/Geraint Lewis.

How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

Jon Ronson is a journalist, a radio personality, the author of several books, and a documentary filmmaker.

The following selections from his February 12, 2015, New York Times Magazine article capture his interviews of Justine Sacco, who was widely shamed on social media after posting a tweet that many considered racially offensive.

Jon ronson justine sacco biography

The article was adapted from Ronson’s book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (2015).

1

As she made the long journey from New York to South Africa, to visit family during the holidays in 2013, Justine Sacco, thirty years old and the senior director of corporate communications at IAC [InterActiveCorp], began tweeting acerbic° little jokes about the indignities° of travel.

There was one about a fellow passenger on the flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport:

2

“‘Weird German Dude: You’re in First Class. It’s 2014. Get some deodorant.’—