Clorox has apologized for a since-deleted tweet that showed a Clorox bottle made up of the new set of Apple's very ethnically diverse emojis that were part of the iOS 8.3 update this week. (Photo: Daniel Acker, Bloomberg) 
 
 Clorox, best-known for turning things white, is red-faced over a misguided tweet that it's since yanked. 
 
 The bleach kingpin has apologized for a since-deleted tweet that showed a Clorox bottle made up of the new set of Apple's very ethnically diverse emojis that were part of the iOS 8.3 update this week. 
 
 The image was fine. But the words that Clorox choose to tweet next to it certainly weren't: "New emojis are alright but where's the bleach?" 
 
 That awkward phrasing meant to ask why bleach wasn't among the dozens of other assorted household items that were added to Apple's emojis. But in the social media world, the comments were interpreted – Clorox might say, misinterpreted – to mean, that its bleach could somehow white-out the diversity. 
 
 "Black emojis were added today. Saying this implies you'd rather the emojis be only white, by adding bleach," tweeted IAmPeace (Adrienne). 
 
 Another tweet from W.E. Blanche DuBois asked, "Did ya'll bleach away the delete button?": 
 
 For Clorox, the ill-fated tweet is a lesson in humility. The tweet, and its reference to emojis, were meant to directly appeal to generation of Millennials who are increasingly color-blind and tech-savvy. But the misguided Clorox tweet came off looking and feeling clueless. 
 
 Wish we could bleach away our last tweet. Didn't mean to offend - it was meant to be about all the 🚽🛁🍷emojis that could use a clean up. — Clorox (@Clorox) April 9, 2015 
 
 The post went up late Wednesday afternoon shortly after the emoji announcement. After seeing the reaction, the company removed it and tweeted this apology: "Wish we could bleach away our last tweet. Didn't mean to offend - it was meant to be about all the [toilet, bathtub and red wine] emojis that could use a clean up." 
 
 In an email to USA TODAY, Clorox spokewoman Rita Gorenberg said, "We apologize to the many people who thought our tweet about the new emojis was insensitive. It was never our intention to offend. We did not mean for this to be taken as a specific reference to the diversity emojis – but we should have been more aware of the news around this. The tweet was meant to be light-hearted but it fell flat." 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1yhg0SR ||||| With an odd sense of fanfare, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism last night produced a 13,000-word report on Rolling Stone's profoundly flawed account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia, "A Rape on Campus," that was published last November. Their conclusion? Rolling Stone fucked up a lot. 
 
 Missing from Columbia's intense vivisection of the article, however, was a sense of responsibility: Whose fault was this crime against journalism, exactly? According to Rolling Stone Publisher Jann Wenner, no one's, really. No one at the magazine, a baby-boomer favorite, will be dismissed for journalistic malpractice, even though Wenner loves to fire people for seemingly innocuous transgressions. Will Dana and Sean Woods, who edited the story, tried to resign in December, but were refused. Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who wrote the article, will continue to write for the magazine. Wenner, quoted in the New York Times today, is blaming the victim. 
 
 The problems with the article started with its source, Mr. Wenner said. He described her as “a really expert fabulist storyteller” who managed to manipulate the magazine’s journalism process. When asked to clarify, he said that he was not trying to blame Jackie, “but obviously there is something here that is untruthful, and something sits at her doorstep.” 
 
 This is an incredible statement coming from a magazine publisher with 40-odd years of experience and three titles under his belt (Us Weekly produces some great journalism) who is known for his mercurial temper and preference for workplace fastidiousness (apparently he values clean desks over clean journalism). Sure, there have been instances of publications getting hosed by young, manipulative employees (Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass), but blaming a source because you did not investigate her thoroughly enough is astonishingly idiotic. 
 
 Here's what happened at Rolling Stone: pathological conflict-avoidance. Every workaround deployed in this story, from not securing the alleged rapist's name before publication to not interviewing the rape victim's friends, was put in place in order to avoid a difficult, uncomfortable situation. Underlying it all is sense of grand interpersonal failures. I'm not going to delve into writing Rolling Stone editorial fanfic, but it's fairly clear that something was awry between the personalities at play here. Whether it was regular workaday pressures—"Ahh, who has time to scrap the main gang-rape anecdote before deadline and get another?"—or something more insidious, whatever culture that bred this story is poisonous. And for Wenner, a rich, powerful 69-year-old man, to place culpability for his magazine's lapse on a twentysomething pseudonymous woman, well, that tells you everything you need to know, doesn't it? 
 
 Later in the same Times article, Wenner goes from blaming the article's source to blaming the article's author. A step in the right direction, maybe, but notice here how Wenner paints Erdely as a reckless woman on a mission to bring down the story's editor with her: 
 
 Ms. Erdely, Mr. Wenner said, “was willing to go too far in her effort to try and protect a victim of apparently a horrible crime. She dropped her journalistic training, scruples and rules and convinced Sean to do the same. There is this series of falling dominoes.” 
 
 "Convinced" is an interesting word choice here. Who was in charge of this story? Certainly not Erdely. Was Woods's editorial judgment neutered by her passion for rape victims, as Wenner indicates? Considering Erdely's side of the story, as depicted in Columbia's report, Woods was neither a careful, rigorous, thoughtful nor attentive editor. The domino fall should have stopped with him, but it did not, because of his failings—whether he did not stand up to Erdely, did not push her enough, or was inexperienced with the subject matter. Instead, he chose to work around the problem at hand, defusing a potential conflict with Erdely and severely damaging the credibility of her story. 
 
 Woods's lack of sensitivity and journalistic finesse is apparent in his boneheaded "apology:" "Ultimately, we were too deferential to our rape victim; we honored too many of her requests in our reporting," Woods said in the Columbia report. "We should have been much tougher, and in not doing that, we maybe did her a disservice." Maybe! 
 
 In another article in the Times today (today is honorary Rolling Stone Fucked Up day in medialand), Jonathan Mahler, a media reporter, hints that gender might have had something to do with the nuclear fallout of the article. 
 
 So what happened with “A Rape on Campus”? It is hard not to wonder if gender was a contributing factor. The magazine’s publisher and managing editor, and the editor of the article, were all men. Did that make them wary, consciously or not, of pushing back against a female writer’s account of a young woman’s rape? 
 
 I'll go one step further than Mahler. Yes! Gender definitely had to do with how fucked up this article was. Consider Rolling Stone. A fine magazine, if you're into the Black Crowes, war, and Matt Taibbi. Will Dana and Sean Woods have edited some wonderful dispatches from Baghdad. But as the Columbia report starkly shows, they were clearly entirely out of their wheelhouse when it came to Erdely's report, and instead of, maybe, I don't know, consulting with women, asking women for help, or trying to understand what was at stake, they just barreled on forward like they were still on General McChrystal's plane (it's worth noting that both the head of fact-checking at Rolling Stone and the fact-checker on the story were women, but any higher-level editorial decisions did not fall to them). It brings to mind Grantland's Dr. V disaster—this is what happens when people who think they know everything get too swept up in a story and lose sight of reality. It's very bad. 
 
 Rolling Stone's claim that it doesn't need to change anything institutionally is hilariously self-defeating. The ultimate fault of "A Rape on Campus" does not lie with a bad source, a bad journalist or a couple of bad editors. It falls on the empire's leader, Wenner, who should take full responsibility for the article, fire everyone involved, and then fire himself for being a dumb, sexist idiot. 
 
 Contact the author at leah@gawker.com. ||||| Luke Gatti, the University of Connecticut student whose foul-mouthed tirade demanding mac and cheese at the Student Union went viral last week issued a public apology in the form of a YouTube video posted online Monday. 
 
 "My name in Luke, and, I saw the video of me, and I'd like to just get a few things out there," Gatti said in his video. "I want to start by apologizing to all the staff involved in my incident, especially the manager, who was really just doing his job. He gave me so many chances to walk away, and I didn't listen to him, I was just a complete a..hole to him instead and no one deserves to be treated that way, ever. 
 
 "At the time, I was, to say the least, very intoxicated, and, when I watched the video a few days later, I couldn't believe it was me in it and I thought, 'Oh my God,' what the hell is wrong with me? This isn't what I'm all about, I don't treat people this way, and I really am ashamed of myself. "The thing that has always gotten me into trouble is my big mouth, I talk and talk, I don't know when to shut up. I was being stubborn, being stupid, and I've got some problems that I am addressing. This is seriously a wakeup call," he continues. "I also would like to apologize to my friends and family who have always supported me for years and I completely disappointed them and let them down, and I'd like to apologize to the university student body for representing it so poorly. It's completely not what UConn's all about. I totally misrepresented them and I'm sorry." 
 
 Just before he ends his 21/2minute video he adds one more thought: 
 
 "Oh, and to all those who want to send donations of mac and cheese to me, please just sent it to your local food pantry. There's lots of hungry people out there." 
 
 Gatti, of Bayville, N.Y., shot the video himself and uploaded it to YouTube on Sunday, his father, Vincent Gatti, told the Hartford Courant Monday. 
 
 Gatti, 19, is due to be arraigned in Rockville Superior Court Tuesday on second-degree breach of peace and criminal trespass charges for the incident which occurred about 10 p.m. on Oct. 4. 
 
 The elder Gatti told the Courant that the family has asked for a continuance, and does not expect to be in court on Tuesday. 
 
 "Yes, we have filed for a continuance," Vincent Gatti said, adding that his son and his family are "fearful of how terribly out of control this has gotten." 
 
 Gatti said his son did something terribly wrong that that is is truly remorseful. 
 
 "He's a kid that made a bad mistake," Vincent Gatti said. "My son was wrong and feels terrible about this." 
 
 In the original profanity-laced video, Gatti demanded some some bacon-jalapeno mac and cheese during UConn's mac and cheese day. But, according to video of the incident, his plans were thwarted by a manager who objected to Gatti bringing an open beer into the food court. 
 
 Following a long argument, a declaration of his rights as an American citizen, some uncomfortable close-talking and repeated shoving of the manager, Gatti was taken to the floor by food court employees and held until he was arrested by a police officer. 
 
 "Can I have beer here? Why not? Why not? Is this America?" Gatti said, hands cupped over his mouth and a lanyard trailing out of the pocket of his sweatpants. 
 
 Gatti's confrontation with the university's food service staff quickly went viral, and many people speculated last week had been expelled after Snapchat photographs of him apparently packing his belongings into a car were seen online. 
 
 But University of Connecticut spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said last week that Gatti was still enrolled, and that the school could not comment beyond that in order not to invade is privacy rights. 
 
 "He is currently listed as an enrolled student," Reitz said. "Beyond that federal privacy law prevents us from discussing anything further on his case." 
 
 In Gatti's own video, his request that students send mac and cheese to their local food pantries comes as a result of another UConn student's efforts to raise money for the Student Union staff. 
 
 Sadie Rumsey, who said she is a Rhode Island native studying at UConn on her gofundme.com page, was impressed with how the employees at the Union Street Market handled Gatti. 
 
 As of Monday evening, she had raised more than $2,000 for the staff. Her initial goal was just $1,000. 
 
 This was not Gatti's first brush with the law. He was arrested in September 2014 for disorderly conduct following a raucous party on Phillips Street in Amherst, Massachusetts. According to photos of court filings posted on the Only in the Republic of Amherst blog, Gatti allegedly "raised his left hand in a 'hook-em-horns'-like gesture" and called arresting officer Richard MacLean -- who is white -- the N-word. 
 
 He was given four months of probation, according to the website. 
 
 Less than two weeks later, Gatti was charged with disorderly conduct and assault and battery on a police officer following another Phillips Street party.
– Rolling Stone's mea culpa made headlines this week, but so did one on a much less serious topic. Here's a look at some of the week's apologies: Adorable: "I don't know their names but thank them a lot and I'm sorry again for throwing up. And I hope you enjoy your ice cream."—Jack, a boy who threw up in a bookstore in Portland, Oregon. He sent the "barf cleaners" a letter and a Ben & Jerry's gift card. Regrettable: "We would like to apologize to our readers and to all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout, including members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and UVA administrators and students."—Will Dana, managing editor of Rolling Stone, after the magazine's infamous campus rape story was shown to be a "journalistic failure." Fat shaming: "I sincerely apologize to Kelly Clarkson for my offensive comment. I admire her remarkable talent and that should have been the focus of any discussion about her."—Chris Wallace, after the Fox host suggested the singer should lay off the pizza. A co-host also apologized. PR misfire: "We apologize to the many people who thought our tweet about the new emojis was insensitive."—Clorox spokesperson, after the company tweeted, "New emojis are alright but where's the bleach?" It showed a Clorox bottle made up of Apple's new emojis, and because some of those emojis feature include black- and brown-skinned faces, the Clorox tweet was construed as offensive on social media. Can't hold it: "We have high standards for service and we missed the mark. We want to apologize to our fans for the inconvenience tonight."—Chicago Cubs spokesperson, after the bathroom situation was so bad on Opening Day that fans resorted to peeing in cups.