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BuzzFeed editor to staff: It's OK to call Trump a racist

BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith told staff in a memo on Tuesday that it's permissible for them to call Donald Trump a racist as a fact on social media.

Smith wrote the memo in response to queries from staff about what was OK for them to post on social media networks such as Twitter or Facebook about Trump. While BuzzFeed News has a policy that staff not be political partisans on social media, Smith said Trump "is operating far outside the political campaigns to which those guidelines usually apply." BuzzFeed's entertainment staffers have more leeway when it comes to expressing opinions.

"It is, for instance, entirely fair to call him a mendacious racist, as the politics team and others have reported clearly and aggressively: he's out there saying things that are false, and running an overtly anti-Muslim campaign. BuzzFeed News's reporting is rooted in facts, not opinion; these are facts," Smith wrote.

The Blaze first reported on the memo, which was then posted by Smith on Twitter. The memo came after Trump made a statement calling on a ban on all Muslims entering the United States.

"Our coverage reflects the facts of his campaign, and you aren't going to get in trouble for stating them on Twitter," Smith wrote. "I would, though, steer away from suggesting his views are those of all Republicans or conservatives; Dick Cheney condemned him yesterday, for instance."

BuzzFeed is not the first news organization to take a public stand on Trump.

Over the summer The Huffington Post moved coverage of Trump to their "Entertainment" vertical. On Monday though, Huffington Post president and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington announced that policy had been reversed since Trump's campaign has been exposing an ugly side of American politics — including calling Trump out as a racist or sexist.

"We believe that the way we cover the campaign should reflect this shift,” she wrote. “And part of that involves never failing to remind our audience who Trump is and what his campaign really represents. … So if Trump's words and actions are racist, we'll call them racist. If they're sexist, we'll call them sexist. We won't shrink from the truth or be distracted by the showmanship.”