New York Times staff have clashed in a private Facebook group and on Twitter following the resignation of star reporter Donald McNeil, pictured, over his use of the N-word
New York Times staff have started in-fighting in private and in public after veteran reporter Donald McNeil was ousted for using the N-word during a company-sponsored school trip to Peru in 2019.
The Times had allowed McNeil to keep his job after complaints regarding racist slur on the 2019 trip surfaced – but he was forced to resign after 150 of the 4,500 global staff members signed a letter slamming the decision.
Since then, writers and staff have been engaged in a battle in a private Facebook group and on Twitter with McNeil’s supporters saying management were ‘bullied by a vocal minority’ and he should have been given the ‘benefit of the doubt’.
Former Times labor correspondent Steven Greenhouse hit out at those ‘far more willing to sympathize with these privileged 15- and 16-year-olds than with a long time colleague’ while others said his career shouldn’t have ended over ‘one word’.
Times crossword columnist Deb Amlen hit back at Greenhouse in the Facebook group, writing: ‘Why is it that the focus in discussions like this almost always [is] on ruining the perpetrator’s life, and not those who were harmed by [his actions].’
1619 reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist who threatened to start her own internal investigation if the Times didn’t punish McNeil, posted a Free Beacon reporter’s email and cell phone number on Twitter when she was asked about her use of the N-word in previous tweets.
The private Facebook group is made up of current and former Times employees and its content was first reported by The Free Beacon . DailyMail.com has contacted The New York Times for comment.
Greenhouse added: ‘What ever happened to the notion of worker solidarity … to giving a fellow worker the benefit of the doubt?
‘And why didn’t the NewsGuild do far more to defend and protect the job of a long-time Times employee, one who at times did tireless, heroic work on behalf of the Guild to help improve pay and conditions for all NYT employees?’
The Daily Beast first reported last week that multiple students and parents had lodged complaints against McNeil back in 2019 after he allegedly used the N-word, said white privilege does not exist and made disparaging comments about black people during a company-sponsored school trip to Peru
The row between NYT staffers spilled onto Twitter after reporter Michael Powell tweeted a statement from free speech group PEN which read: ‘For reporter Donald McNeil to end his long career as a result of a single word, risks sending a chilling message. That the paper apparently altered its course … as a result of public pressure is a further worrying signal.’
Race reporter John Eligon replied: ‘The paper didn’t alter course cuz of “public pressure.” Legit concerns were raised by Black employees who worked alongside Don. It’s disheartening that a colleague I’ve worked with & respected would tweet this & speaks to how isolating it is to be Black at a mainstream news org.
‘You often wonder what your white colleagues who are lovely to your face are actually thinking or saying about you — or people like you — behind your back.’
In a letter to staff Friday, Donald McNeil Jr. announced he was standing down from the paper after 45 years saying he ‘originally thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended’ but now realized ‘it cannot.’
Top bosses had previously said he should be ‘given another chance’ saying McNeil hadn’t used the word with ‘malicious or hateful intent’ during the Times-sponsored school trip.
The paper also changed tact Friday telling staff ‘we do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.’
Times finance reporter Lawrence De Maria said in the Facebook group: ‘We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent’ might be the most racist statement I’ve ever read. It demeans ALL races.’
![Times crossword columnist Deb Amlen hit back at Greenhouse, writing: 'Why is it that the focus in discussions like this almost always [is] on ruining the perpetrator's life, and not those who were harmed by [his actions]'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/02/09/14/39072872-9240863-image-a-29_1612881368867.jpg)
Former Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse, left, hit out at those ‘far more willing to sympathize with these privileged 15- and 16-year-olds than with a long time colleague who has done much great work for the Times over the years’. Times crossword columnist Deb Amlen, right, hit back at Greenhouse, writing: ‘Why is it that the focus in discussions like this almost always [is] on ruining the perpetrator’s life, and not those who were harmed by [his actions]’
Pulitzer Prize-winning colleague Nikole Hannah-Jones, pictured, had already threatened to launch her own investigation into McNeil. Times finance reporter Lawrence De Maria said that statement ‘might be the most racist statement I’ve ever read, ‘adding: ‘It demeans ALL races’
After The Free Beacon reached out to 1619 reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones regarding her use of the N-word they say she posted the reporter’s email and cell phone number to her followers. She later added: ‘For the record, it is almost never appropriate for people other than those from whom the racist slur was created to ever used the slur. It simply is almost never necessary and the harms, intended or not, are too high.’
The row between NYT staffers also spilled onto Twitter after reporter Michael Powell tweeted a statement from free speech group PEN
Race reporter John Eligon replied to reporter Michael Powell
Times Magazine contributor Robert Worth said leadership at the paper ‘make a decision’ and are ‘then are bullied by a vocal minority into changing their minds’, adding: ‘This is not the NYT I know.’
After The Free Beacon reached out to 1619 reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones regarding her use of the N-word they say she posted the reporter’s email and cell phone number to her followers.
She later added: ‘For the record, it is almost never appropriate for people other than those from whom the racist slur was created to ever used the slur. It simply is almost never necessary and the harms, intended or not, are too high.’
Executive Editor of New York Times Dean Baquet is pictured. Times finance reporter Lawrence De Maria said in the group: ‘We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent’ might be the most racist statement I’ve ever read. It demeans ALL races’
The ousting of the man who was the paper’s star COVID-19 reporter came after a group of 150 staffers sent a letter to the executive leadership Wednesday.
In it, they said they were ‘deeply disturbed’ by the paper’s handling of the incident and demanded a full investigation into ‘newly surfaced complaints’ against McNeil.
Pulitzer Prize-winning colleague Nikole Hannah-Jones had already threatened to launch her own investigation into him.
Hannah-Jones, the reporter behind the 1619 Project which aims to reframe America’s history to put the impact of slavery at the center of the narrative
The Times has been rocked by a number of scandals of late. The same day McNeil resigned, audio producer Andy Mills also announced he had left the paper in the midst of sexual harassment claims and the Caliphate podcast embarrassment.
The week before the allegations surfaced against McNeil, it emerged the Times had ended the contract of editor Lauren Wolfe following a tweet about Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Wolfe, who joined the paper last May, had tweeted days earlier that she had ‘chills’ watching Biden’s plane landing at Andrew Air Force Base shortly before his inauguration.
‘Biden landing at Joint Base Andrews now. I have chills,’ she posted.
McNeil broke his silence over the 2019 incident in an email to the Times staff Friday announcing his exit where he issued an apology to both his colleagues and the students on the trip.
‘I should not have done that,’ he said. ‘Originally, I thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended. I now realize that it cannot.’
McNeil admitted his use of the racial slur was ‘deeply offensive and hurtful’ and that his initial thoughts he could defend his actions also showed ‘extraordinarily bad judgement.’
The veteran journalist described the 2019 incident saying he said the N-word when asked by one of the students whether he believed a classmate should be suspended for using the racist slur.
‘On a 2019 New York Times trip to Peru for high school students, I was asked at dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur,’ he said, according to the Washington Post which obtained a copy of the note.
‘To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.’
He extended his ‘sincerest apology’ to the students on the trip as well as his colleagues who he said he ‘let down.’
‘For offending my colleagues – and for anything I’ve done to hurt The Times, which is an institution I love and whose mission I believe in and try to serve – I am sorry.
‘I let you all down,’ he wrote.
McNeil’s message to staff was included in an email sent from Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joseph Kahn to staffers Friday where they vowed not to tolerate racist language and to better tackle issues of workplace misconduct.
‘We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,’ they wrote.
McNeil’s departure was a marked turnaround from last week when the Times responded to the Beast’s expose to say it had conducted an investigation and decided not to fire him because they believed he showed ‘poor judgment’ but did not use the words with ‘hateful or malicious’ intent.
At least six students or their parents complained after the trip that McNeil used racially insensitive or racist language, the Daily Beast first reported.
Two students said he used the N-word and said he didn’t believe white privilege exists while three others claimed he made racist remarks and stereotypical comments about black teens.
The media Stasi: Glenn Greenwald slams culture of ‘junior high hall-monitor tattling’ among prominent ‘woke’ journalists that is like East German ‘citizen surveillance’
Glenn Greenwald has slammed what he calls the ‘junior high hall-monitor tattling’ among the ‘woke’ media, dubbing it ‘Stasi-like citizen surveillance’.
The journalist, part of a team that won a Pulitzer for reports about government surveillance programs based on leaks by Edward Snowden, shared his thoughts on what he calls ‘authoritarian ‘reporting” on Substack Sunday.
In it Greenwald points to New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz, who falsely accused a tech investor of using the word ‘retarded’ during an online chat she was monitoring.
Greenwald also namechecks CNN’s Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, NBC’s Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny and the Times’ Mike Isaac, Kevin Roose and Sheera Frenkel, calling them ‘hall-monitor reporters’.
He writes: ‘A new and rapidly growing journalistic ‘beat’ has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance.
‘They have insufficient talent or skill, and even less desire, to take on real power centers…so settle on this penny-ante, trivial bulls*** — tattling, hall monitoring, speech policing.’
Greenwald announced his resignation from The Intercept – the site he co-founded – in October claiming editors ‘censored’ an article he wrote criticizing Joe Biden.
He added Sunday: ‘These examples of journalism being abused to demand censorship of spaces they cannot control are too numerous to comprehensively chronicle.’
Glenn Greenwald. pictured, has slammed what he calls the ‘junior high hall-monitor tattling’ among the ‘woke’ media, dubbing it ‘Stasi-like citizen surveillance’
He accuses Darcy of ‘sitting around with Brian Stelter petulantly pointing to people breaking the rules on social media and demanding tech executives make the rule-breakers disappear’.
Greenwald refers to the ‘little crew of tattletale millennials’ at NBC and their ‘twerpy work’ as ‘scrolling through 4Chan boards’.
He also calls out the New York Times who ‘quickly donned their hall-monitor goggles and Stasi notebooks to warn that the Bad People had migrated to Signal and Telegram’ in the wake of Parler’s removal from the internet.
Greenwald says that leaves the US with the ‘unimaginably warped dynamic in which U.S. journalists are not the defenders of free speech values but the primary crusaders to destroy them’.
Greenwald adds: ‘They do it in part for power: to ensure nobody but they can control the flow of information. They do it partly for ideology and out of hubris: the belief that their worldview is so indisputably right that all dissent is inherently dangerous ‘disinformation.’
‘And they do it from petty vindictiveness: they clearly get aroused — find otherwise-elusive purpose — by destroying people’s reputations and lives, no matter how powerless.’
Greenwald also namechecks CNN’s Brian Stelter, left, and Oliver Darcy, right, NBC’s Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny and the Times’ Mike Isaac, Kevin Roose and Sheera Frenkel, calling them ‘hall-monitor reporters’
NBC’s Ben Collins, left, and The New York Times Mike Isaac, ight. Greenwald refers to the ‘little crew of tattletale millennials’ at NBC and their ‘twerpy work’ as ‘scrolling through 4Chan boards’.
The New York Times’ Kevin Roose, left, and NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny, right. Greenwald calls out the New York Times who ‘quickly donned their hall-monitor goggles and Stasi notebooks to warn that the Bad People had migrated to Signal and Telegram’ in the wake of Parler’s removal from the internet.
The New York Times’ Sheera Frenkel. Greenwald writes: ‘A new and rapidly growing journalistic ‘beat’ has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance’
He adds: ‘They clearly get aroused — find otherwise-elusive purpose — by destroying people’s reputations and lives, no matter how powerless.
‘Whatever the motive, corporate media employees whose company title is ‘journalist’ are the primary activists against a free and open internet and the core values of free thought.
‘Its primary objectives are control, censorship, and the destruction of reputations for fun and power. Though its epicenter is the largest corporate media outlets, it is the very antithesis of journalism.’
DailyMail.com has contacted CNN, the New York Times and NBC for comment.
Greenwald points to New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz, pictured, who falsely accused tech investor of using a slur during online chat she was monitoring
New York Times reporter Lorenz had tweeted accusing Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen of using the r-word during a chat on the new audio app Clubhouse.
She also shared images of those in the discussion who had ‘not called him on it’.
In reality another person who was part of the Clubhouse discussion had said Redditors call themselves ‘r****d revolution’.
Greenwald argues: ‘Anyone who spent any time at all on the sub-Reddit thread of r/WallStreetBets knows that ‘r****ss’ was the single most common term used by those who short-squeezed the hedge funds invested in the collapse of GameStop.
‘It is virtually impossible to discuss the ethos of that subculture without using that term.’
When Lorenz was corrected and told Andreessen had not used the word she said it had sounded like him and deleted her tweet.
Greenwald also focused on the resignation of top New York Times reporter Donald McNeil Jr., who announced he was standing down from the paper after 45 years Friday following his use of the N-word.
In a letter to staff McNeil Jr. said he ‘originally thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended’ but now realized ‘it cannot.’
Greenwald wrote: ‘The overarching rule of liberal media circles and liberal politics is that you are free to accuse anyone who deviates from liberal orthodoxy of any kind of bigotry that casually crosses your mind — just smear them as a racist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, etc. without the slightest need for evidence — and it will be regarded as completely acceptable.
‘That’s the purpose, the function, of these lowly accusatory tactics: to control, to coerce, to dominate, to repress.’
He notes that others ‘are rightly terrorized by these lowlife tactics, intimidated into silence and conformity.’, adding: ‘They know if they express views these Stasi agents and their bosses dislike, their reputations can be instantly destroyed. So they remain silent or pliant out of necessity.’
Entrepreneur Marc Andreessen pictured in 2016. New York Times reporter Lorenz had tweeted accusing Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen of using the r-word during a chat on the new audio app Clubhouse
Lorenz also shared images of those in the discussion who had ‘not called him on it’