By: Jared Evan
Two recent resignations at the NY Times are being described as “forced” and are creating a lot of controversy, as one reporter resigned after allegedly using racist language and a second reporter resigned after alleged predatory behavior.
Staff members at the New York Times are reportedly clashing after its longtime reporter Donald McNeil Jr. was forced to resign last week for using “racist language” in 2019.
In posts to a private Facebook group, the Washington Free Beacon reportedly discovered Times staffers heatedly arguing about whether the ousting of McNeil, a science reporter who had been at the paper for 45 years, was justified, Breitbart pointed out
Breitbart summarized: McNeil, who had emerged over the past year as a leading reporter on coronavirus for the paper, had, according to the Times, used a “racial slur” during a work trip to Peru in 2019 while serving as a guide to high school students, and the paper’s management had subsequently “disciplined” him for it. The Daily Beast provided further context, reporting that several students complained that McNeil had used the N-word specifically and two students alleged McNeil also rejected the concept of “white privilege.”
According to Breitbart, McNeil explained last week in an apology letter that a student during the trip had asked him if a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video in which she used the word, and McNeil had replied to the student by repeating the word as he was clarifying her question.
In other words, McNeil was not using the word to degrade an induvial with the racial slur, he was repeating a question. Evidently context no longer means anything with political correctness infecting workplaces. Even more bizarre is that a reporter is not allowed to have an opinion of a vague social justice slogan “white privilege”, which in itself is simply an opinion or sociological theory, not a grounded fact.
“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent … and [we] will work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language”, Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joe Kahn said in a statement.
Meanwhile reporter Andy Mills stepped down after alleged “predatory” behavior. The NY Post pointed out In his resignation published online, Mills admitted to bad behavior while working as a producer for the WNYC show “Radiolab” — including giving one colleague an unwanted backrub and pouring a drink on a coworker’s head at a party seven years ago — but said he was stepping down over an “online campaign” that had painted him as a “predator.”
“I look back at those actions with extraordinary regret and embarrassment,” he wrote Friday.
