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"Abandoned" by the Register... That's what former Des Moines Register reporter Aaron Calvin told Buzzfeed - that he feels like - after being fired fro the paper earlier this week. Calvin uncovered some 8-year-o inappropriate tweets - by Carson King. But hours later inappropriate tweets from Calvin's past - also surface Calvin said his tweets were embarrassing - and taken out of context. Calvin said he wa talking to police about death threats he received - when t Register's parent company - Gannett - asked him to resign be fired. He said he chose to be fired.

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The former Des Moines Register reporter, Aaron Calvin, spoke to BuzzFeed about his experience in the aftermath of the Carson King article and tweets. "This event basically set my entire life on fire," Calvin told Buzzfeed. Calvin was responsible for writing a profile on King when he found tweets from approximately eight years ago and asked King about the racial context in the tweets. Before the profile was published, King held a press conference and apologized for the tweets, explaining a Des Moines Register reporter brought them to his attention. "He was deeply regretful and I recognized that these were not representative artifacts of Carson," Calvin said. Shortly after multiple people online posted screen shots of Calvin's past tweets. On Thursday night, Des Moines Register announced that Calvin was no longer with the paper. Calvin told BuzzFeed he felt obligated to share what he had found with the public, but took much consideration before making the decision. After Calvin's tweets were published, he said that Des Moines Register editors asked him to compose an apology on Twitter and he agreed. " afraid and just trying to comply with what I was being told so I could possibly hold onto my job," Calvin said to BuzzFeed. "I regret publishing that tweet now. Because I was never trying to hold Carson to any kind of 'higher standard' or any kind of standard at all. I was trying to do my job as a reporter, and I think I did so to the best of my ability." Calvin received death threats. He was told by human resource representatives at Gannett to not speak to the media and to leave his apartment for his safety. "I recognized that I'm not the first person to be doxed like this. This whole campaign was taken by right-wing ideologues and largely drive by that force," he said. "It was just a taste of what I assume that women and journalists of color suffer all the time, but the kind of locality and regional virality of the story made it so intense." On Thursday, Calvin said he spoke to police about the threats when he got a call from Gannett. "They told me they were going to offer me an option that I could resign or I could be fired with no severance. It was really a semantic difference, I guess, so I chose to be fired," Calvin said. A Gannett spokesperson didn't comment on BuzzFeed's article. Calvin said he hasn't heard from Gannett or Des Moines Register leaders since he has been fired. Some of his former co-workers have reached out. He admitted to regretting his tweets, but believes they were taken out of context."As I said when I was speaking with Carson, I don't think people's past social media statements should be made to make blanket characterizations about them," Calvin told BuzzFeed. He doesn't agree with the "false narrative" that Calvin "canceled" King. "Carson was never in danger of being canceled," Calvin said. "There was no attempt or intent to 'cancel' him. He raised hundreds of thousands more dollars since this happened. The governor of Iowa declared a 'Carson King Day.'" Right now, Calvin is "taking it day-by-day." "I feel like I"m a good writer and a good reporter and I was just doing my job to the best of my ability," Calvin said. "Frankly it's really disappointing to me to be abandoned by my former employer. I still in a lot of ways support the Register. I just wish they had believed in me."