Michael Grunwald, TIME magazine's senior national correspondent, called for the United States government to assassinate Julian Assange with a drone strike Saturday.
WikiLeaks responded by demanding his resignation.
Grunwald's tweet was met with immediate criticism, so much so that he eventually deleted it:
Fair point. I'll delete. @rober1236Jua my main problem with this is it gives Assange supporters a nice safe persecution complex to hide in
— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) August 17, 2013
Assange's organization WikiLeaks also responded:
We have written to TIME magazine to ask for Michael Grunwald's resignation https://t.co/X8Rf3TN5MY
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 18, 2013
.@TIME must show that journalists calling for the murder of other journalists, or, indeed, anybody, is never acceptable. @TheTinaBeast
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 18, 2013
TIME issued a statement: “Michael Grunwald posted an offensive tweet from his personal Twitter account that is in no way representative of TIME’s views. He regrets having tweeted it, and he removed it from his feed.”
