There was only one full-time black journalist at the Kenosha News. Why that was the case is unknown, and any attempt to “explain” it would be nothing less than outright fabrication born of bias. Now, there are none. To his credit, the one black reporter, Daniel Thompson, saw something he couldn’t tolerate. After attempting to fix it, and being rebuffed, he did the only honorable thing he could do. He quit.

The headline, which appeared on the Kenosha News website on Saturday, highlighted a remark from one rally participant: “Kenosha speaker: ‘If you kill one of us, it’s time for us to kill one of yours.’” The online version of the article included a 59-second video showing the person who spoke those words, a Black man who was not identified by name.

The story was otherwise fine. It was the headline that offended Thompson.

Mr. Thompson, who joined the paper’s newsroom three years ago, said he found the headline off-base. “The story is about the entire reaction of all the speakers and people in attendance, and that quote is one outlier falling within a flood of positive ones,” he said in an interview.

The headline was inflammatory in that click-baity sort of way, accurate as far as the quote was concerned, but an outlier statement from the sentiment otherwise expressed at the rally. It was news, and newsworthy. It was not the impression Thompson thought should be given. So he objected.

Mr. Thompson, 30, said he attended the Saturday rally but did not cover it. Shortly after 7 p.m. that day, he sent a text that included a screenshot of the headline to Bob Heisse, the executive editor of The Kenosha News.

“I don’t even know if I can associate with the company after that,” Mr. Thompson said in the text exchange. “I need to calm down, but I wanted you to know immediately.”

Thompson made a threat, but the sort of threat that is his right to make. Whether he would have done so under other circumstances, or after further deliberation, who knows? But the decision of whether he could “associate” with the Kenosha News given the headline was his alone to make. And he used it as leverage to force the issue.

According to a screenshot provided by Mr. Thompson, Mr. Heisse responded, “Yes you should calm down. That is a public threat, and it is an exact quote at a rally that was to that point totally on message.”

This was not the response Thompson wanted. Heisse was the executive editor. It was his decision as to what headline would appear in the headline. Heisse explained, if tersely, that making a public threat was news and was, therefore, worthy of a headline. Thompson was unpersuaded.

Mr. Thompson replied: “Then I quit.”

And just like that, the only full-time black journalist at the Kenosha News was no more. Whether Thompson was “right” is a value judgment. His view is understandable, and not wrong, but then, so was Heisse’s. A decision was made, and it didn’t go Thompson’s way. If, as Thompson asserted, he could not associate with a newspaper that made such a decision, the only honorable thing for him to do was quit. So he did.

Whether that was a wise decision, for Thompson personally or the Kenosha News, is a separate matter. Now there will be no full-time black journalist. Is that better? Thompson is out of a job. Is that better? The headline still stands, as it was accurate and newsworthy, even if it failed to capture the rally as Thompson would have had it. And to add my two cents, Thompson’s point is the better of the two. While it was newsworthy, it was the tail wagging the dog of the story.

And after words were exchanged, associations broken, the headline was changed anyway.

By noon Sunday, the headline had been changed on the Kenosha News site. It now reads: “Kenosha speaker strays from message at rally.”

“I hear the headline’s been changed,” Mr. Thompson wrote on Facebook. “Wow. Only took me quitting.”

The reaction on Facebook is, of course, logically fallacious. Had he not quit, not used quitting as leverage to force his boss to do as he wanted, but argued more persuasively, perhaps he would still have his job and the headline would have been changed. Correlation does not imply causation. But no one will know because Thompson chose to quit in anger. It might not have been the wise choice, but it was his right to leave a job that he found intolerable. It was the honorable thing to do.

In contrast, restaurant workers in Chicago want to similarly exert pressure on their employers, but rather than place the burden on themselves, they seek third parties, diners, to do it for them.

For the past three months, a group of Chicago industry workers have been developing a campaign to hold restaurant owners accountable, to ensure public statements supporting Black Lives Matter are more than a public relations ploy. The effort’s called CHAAD (Chicago Hospitality Accountable Actions Database) and is run by a “decentralized, racially diverse group of queer folk, women, and men.”

Workers can ding their employers if they fail to act, to behave, in a manner in which the workers approve. If not, they will hold them out as “bad actors” in the restaurant world and shame them into capitulation or destitution.

The effort began in June, founded by Raeghn Draper and Leah Ball. As bad actors in the industry routinely won honors from the James Beard Foundation and Michelin, the organizers sought accountability.

Chefs and restaurants win honors for their food. Diners pay their exorbitant prices for the food (more or less). But who would eat at a racist restaurant that treats its employees badly? Would they want their pictures on a website of rich white people who choose to eat at racist restaurants?

And if the employees decide they want more money, less work, more autonomy, whatever, because people sometimes use clout for their own purposes, would they have the ability to tell the chef, “nice little restaurant you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.” And who would doubt the workers’ cries of racism?

Then again, as of now, they’ve raised $3,770 out of a $20,000 goal. Hardly enough to buy a yacht.