[Update, Friday, 6:50 pm Eastern: Khalid defended her slanted "isolationist" label of the vote in favor of Brexit in a Friday post on Twitter: "And, yes, the BREXIT vote is isolationist. Whether you think isolationism is good or bad is up to you." Her posts below also appear to violate NPR's "standards of impartiality" for social media use.]
NPR's Asma Khalid made it clear in a series of posts on Twitter during the evening/early morning after the Brexit vote that she opposed the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union. Khalid initially expressed her shock after the British television network ITV projected that there was an 80 percent probability that 'Leave' would win. She later spotlighted a British Muslim's Tweet that contended that "potentially I live in a country with many closet racists." She also labeled the pro-Brexit result "an isolationist move with global ripples."
The journalist, who once interned for the liberal BBC and obtained a master's from the University of Cambridge, first linked to a Twitter post by Mike DeBonis, a congressional correspondent for The Washington Post. DeBonis responded to ITV's projection by stating, "So now comes the part where I don't check my 401(k) balance for the next several months." She added her own one-word reply:
Three minutes later, Khalid took it upon herself to counter a Tweet from former Senator Jim DeMint, who contended that "#Brexit will be cause to celebrate on both sides of the Atlantic since it rebuilds Britain as a true global power." She replied by citing anonymous experts:
The following hour, the NPR reporter linked to the Tweet from Siema Iqbal, a U.K.-based Muslim who has written for the left-wing Guardian and the Huffington Post, who gave the "closet racists" assertion about her fellow British citizens. Khalid contributed her own commentary to Iqbal's:
A half hour after hyping the supposed "racist" Brits angle, the journalist used a Tweet to express her sympathy with the youthful opponents of Brexit:
Khalid finally used her "isolationist" term as she pointed out the initial reaction from the financial markets to the pro-'Leave' vote:
