GOP runoff winner's campaign team gloats on Twitter, taunts media after Mississippi victory

• Read reactions to the Hyde-Smith tweet at bottom of story.

Minutes after the Associated Press declared Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith the winner in the U.S. Senate runoff election Tuesday night, the Republican senator's campaign team posted a controversial tweet that targeted Mississippi media. 

Team Cindy, the official twitter account of the Hyde-Smith communications team, tweeted out a popular GIF meme of a man pouring gas into a fire pit and subsequently catching the yard on fire. The man was labeled "fake news media," and the fire was labeled "Mississippi runoff election."

The tweet mentioned several local journalists, including Clarion Ledger Executive Editor Sam R. Hall. 

The tweet began with, "Y'all find @CindyHydeSmith's middle school yearbook yet? #ThanksForPlaying #GameOver #FakeNewsGotBurned"

The tweet appears to be referencing a story first reported by Ashton Pittman at the Jackson Free Press. The story says Hyde-Smith graduated from Lawrence County Academy, "a segregation academy that was set up so that white parents could avoid having to send their children to schools with black students, a yearbook reveals."

Pittman said he reached out to the Hyde-Smith campaign hours before the story posted, "but they never answered my questions about attendance from the school."

Pittman said he also found Facebook posts of former classmates who said they went to school with her.

Hyde-Smith spokeswoman Melissa Scallan said Pittman did reach out to her via phone and text and she could not answer some of the questions he asked. She said Pittman reached out at 10 p.m. on Nov. 23. 

"I was going to have him talk with the senator," Scallan said.

Scallan said the article was released before she had a chance to talk to Hyde-Smith because she was campaigning that weekend. 

Scallan, who called Pittman's story a "novel," said she did not believe connecting Hyde-Smith with him "would do any good at that point.

"Who’s going to go back and read that see that he put a comment in from her?" 

Pittman said he did not tell Scallan he would hold the story for comment but did tell her he'd be glad to include comments from Hyde-Smith at any time. 

Scallan would not say which campaign staffer posted the tweet, but she was not the person who authored it. 

"Throughout this campaign and particularly in the past few weeks, there were some media who chose to write things about Cindy Hyde-Smith and seemed to totally ignore things about Mike Espy, and in some cases, it was blatant," Scallan said when asked about the decision to post the tweet. 

Scallan said the tweet was targeted at mostly local Mississippi media, although most of the journalists mentioned in the tweet did not author the story. Some of those publications, including the Clarion Ledger, also did not post a story about the yearbook photo. 

"I think it was not meant to be any long-lasting comment on media or anything like that, just for this particular campaign," Scallan said. "Since the campaign’s over, we’re going to call you out on it." 

The video has gotten over 60,000 views and hundreds of people responded. Almost all of the comments are critical of the tweet. 

Here are some of the responses. To read the whole Twitter thread, click here.

Race dominated the #MSSen runoff campaign after a video surfaced of Hyde-Smith saying she'd sit in the "front row of a public hanging" in support of a cattle farmer in Tupelo. 

At first, Hyde-Smith did not apologize. She later said she was sorry if her words were taken offensively during a live-streamed debate with Democrat Mike Espy. 

The video, posted by Lamar White. Jr., has gotten hundreds of thousands views. White later posted a second video that showed Hyde-Smith joking about voter suppression.