• File: Daria Bishop
• Citizen Cider in Burlington

Reporter Carolyn Shapiro spent more than six weeks chasing down last week's Seven Days story, "Trouble Brewing," about Citizen Cider. She thought at first that it would be a straightforward business piece about the Burlington company's launch of a new light beer. But things got complicated when she learned that a worker had objected to the promotion of the new product, Hey Bub, and was fired soon afterward. Carolyn subsequently discovered that several LGBTQ and female employees had left as a result of the company's marketing campaign, targeting straight, working-class men, and a launch party at which they were asked to sport T-shirts with suggestive slogans like "Keep It Trimmed," "Get Plowed" and "Approved for Hooking Up."

Typically, business owners selling a new product are eager to talk to the media in hopes that the resulting publicity will generate interest — and sales. But Citizen Cider's cofounder and president, Justin Heilenbach, dodged Carolyn's phone calls and emails for weeks, during which time more and more disgruntled workers sought her out to share their stories. Former bartender Mo Cummings went on the record alleging she was fired for her "bad attitude" at the launch party.

Carolyn waited for Heilenbach, to give him a chance to explain the company's marketing strategy and respond to the employee criticism — important details that would make for a fuller, more informative and balanced piece. He was clearly stalling, likely hoping the story would go away, but Carolyn kept pushing until he came around.

The resulting story, like all things that strive for fairness, is a bit of a “he said-they said” — for example, Heilenbach said Cummings was fired for “performance issues.” In the end, Carolyn reported the facts she could confirm and put everything in context — Journalism 101. Her story leaves it to the reader to decide whether Citizen Cider erred in creating a work environment that pushed some of its employees out the door or whether the exodus was an overreaction to the company’s attempt to find a new revenue stream: a beer for bros.

Well into our process of journalistic due diligence, conversations about the company began swirling on social media. When the story came out, posters on Reddit were divided, and some got busy debating another question: Did Seven Days miss the real story? On a thread called "What happened with Citizen Cider?" the platform was abuzz with anonymous confessions from people claiming to be former employees, who alleged toxic masculinity and sexual harassment at the company. Some commenters said Carolyn went too easy on its leaders. One person with the screen name "Uncle_Oji_26" made the case that by mentioning Hey Bub and its price at a store that sells it, we were endorsing the product.

On Facebook, another person floated the theory that Seven Days held back criticism of Citizen Cider because we're protecting an important advertiser. In fact, Citizen Cider hasn't advertised with us for two years, and we would never allow ad dollars to influence our editorial coverage. One poster on Instagram urged followers to "tell Seven Days how much they suck." Afterward, a few people tagged us in videos of themselves throwing issues of Seven Days in the trash.

Meanwhile, I got an email with a very different message: "How many hit pieces on local businesses will 7Days write? How many takedowns of local employers and innovators will you green light?" wrote my correspondent. "What's it like working at your company? All Rosy and perfect and you do it all 100% right? How many local businesses has 7 Days and Digger destroyed and tainted? It's disgusting."

It’s true that unhappy employees tend to find each other online — often in places reporters can see. But Seven Days pursues “bad boss” stories with caution. Before we move those conversations from anything-goes internet forums to the pages of our newspaper, we look for evidence of illegal behavior, lawsuits, discrimination and proven patterns of abuse confirmed by on-the-record testimony. Carolyn interviewed almost a dozen former and current employees of Citizen Cider. None of them reported having experienced sexual harassment.

Responsible journalism takes time and care. Not only do we have an obligation to be fair and explore all sides of a story, we also want to avoid getting sued for defamation — a liability from which social media platforms are exempt. Newspaper publishers pay steep penalties for destroying someone's reputation without proof. Not so Reddit, X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

Online forums may be useful, but they can also be hotbeds of unsubstantiated rumors and aren’t subject to the same rules traditional media outlets are. That’s why we’re detailing our methods and ethics here.