NY Times reporter fired over using the "N" word

[swing_voter]

Late last week, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a veteran science reporter for The Times, abruptly departed from his job following the revelation that he had uttered a racial slur while on a New York Times trip to Peru for high school students. In the course of a dinner discussion, he was asked by a student whether a 12-year-old should have been suspended by her school for making a video in which she had used a racial slur.

In a written apology to staff, McNeil explained what happened next: “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.”

In an initial note to staff, editor-in-chief Dean Baquet noted that, after conducting an investigation, he was satisfied that McNeil had not used the slur maliciously and that it was not a firing offense. In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision.

“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” they wrote on Friday afternoon. They added to this unambiguous judgment that the paper would “work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language.”

Read the column the New York Times didn't want you to read (nypost.com)



Student asks reporter about using the "N" word.

Reporter answers her question using the "N".

This is captured on video.

Reporter says he used the word as an example when answering the student's question. There was no malice involved.

NY Times admin says okay. No problem.

150 Times employees signed a protest letter saying the reporter should be fired.

The NY Times admin fires him.


Seems like a severe punishment for a small thing.



.

 

[Allan]

Late last week, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a veteran science reporter for The Times, abruptly departed from his job following the revelation that he had uttered a racial slur while on a New York Times trip to Peru for high school students. In the course of a dinner discussion, he was asked by a student whether a 12-year-old should have been suspended by her school for making a video in which she had used a racial slur.

In a written apology to staff, McNeil explained what happened next: “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.”

In an initial note to staff, editor-in-chief Dean Baquet noted that, after conducting an investigation, he was satisfied that McNeil had not used the slur maliciously and that it was not a firing offense. In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision.

“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” they wrote on Friday afternoon. They added to this unambiguous judgment that the paper would “work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language.”

Read the column the New York Times didn't want you to read (nypost.com)



Student asks reporter about using the "N" word.

Reporter answers her question using the "N".

This is captured on video.

Reporter says he used the word as an example when answering the student's question. There was no malice involved.

NY Times admin says okay. No problem.

150 Times employees signed a protest letter saying the reporter should be fired.

The NY Times admin fires him.


Seems like a severe punishment for a small thing.



.

This was an overreaction. In a 2011 review of the new edition of Huckleberry Finn the writer not only repeatedly used the word they are now prohibiting, but decried its exclusion from the book:

A new effort to sanitize “Huckleberry Finn” comes from Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, at Montgomery, Ala., who has produced a new edition of Twain’s novel that replaces the word “nigger” with “slave.” Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.

To now fire the reporter for a word that still exists four times in their online review is ridiculous.

 

[Rogue Valley]

To initially agree that the usage was not an intentional slur and egregious use of the word, and then to capitulate under pressure from staffers.

Not a good look for the New York Times.

 

[trouble13]

Late last week, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a veteran science reporter for The Times, abruptly departed from his job following the revelation that he had uttered a racial slur while on a New York Times trip to Peru for high school students. In the course of a dinner discussion, he was asked by a student whether a 12-year-old should have been suspended by her school for making a video in which she had used a racial slur.

In a written apology to staff, McNeil explained what happened next: “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.”

In an initial note to staff, editor-in-chief Dean Baquet noted that, after conducting an investigation, he was satisfied that McNeil had not used the slur maliciously and that it was not a firing offense. In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision.

“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” they wrote on Friday afternoon. They added to this unambiguous judgment that the paper would “work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language.”

Read the column the New York Times didn't want you to read (nypost.com)



Student asks reporter about using the "N" word.

Reporter answers her question using the "N".

This is captured on video.

Reporter says he used the word as an example when answering the student's question. There was no malice involved.

NY Times admin says okay. No problem.

150 Times employees signed a protest letter saying the reporter should be fired.

The NY Times admin fires him.


Seems like a severe punishment for a small thing.



.

I dont have any sympathy for a NYT reporter getting fired for this.

Maybe when enough of the people who are perpetuating this 0 tolerance cultural become victims of it, they will stop promoting it.

 

[nvflash]

Oh no, the dreaded "N" word.

"No" more job.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Late last week, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a veteran science reporter for The Times, abruptly departed from his job following the revelation that he had uttered a racial slur while on a New York Times trip to Peru for high school students. In the course of a dinner discussion, he was asked by a student whether a 12-year-old should have been suspended by her school for making a video in which she had used a racial slur.

In a written apology to staff, McNeil explained what happened next: “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.”

In an initial note to staff, editor-in-chief Dean Baquet noted that, after conducting an investigation, he was satisfied that McNeil had not used the slur maliciously and that it was not a firing offense. In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision.

“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” they wrote on Friday afternoon. They added to this unambiguous judgment that the paper would “work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language.”

Read the column the New York Times didn't want you to read (nypost.com)



Student asks reporter about using the "N" word.

Reporter answers her question using the "N".

This is captured on video.

Reporter says he used the word as an example when answering the student's question. There was no malice involved.

NY Times admin says okay. No problem.

150 Times employees signed a protest letter saying the reporter should be fired.

The NY Times admin fires him.


Seems like a severe punishment for a small thing.



.

Welcome to the (woke?) new world of cancel culture.

 

[Allan]

Welcome to the (woke?) new world of cancel culture.

I get what they are trying to do, but sometimes these things go too far. People shouldn't lose their jobs over something like this - at worst it's a chat with the HR dept.