Considering the infighting that’s been happening at the Washington Post, it’s amazing that the paper finds time to report on anything else. Perhaps the WaPo should just become a gossip rag about what’s going on inside the Post:
Much of the infighting began after David Weigel, a politics reporter, retweeted a sexist and homophobic joke. In response, Felicia Sonmez, another political reporter at The Post, tweeted: “Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!”
Mr. Weigel quickly deleted his tweet and apologized. Several days later, with several staff members fighting about his actions online, Ms. Buzbee suspended him for a month. In emails, she implored Post journalists to be collegial. After an employee replied to everyone in support of Ms. Sonmez, The Post cut off the ability for staff members to reply-all in a newsroom-wide email, according to a person with knowledge of the decision.
But Ms. Sonmez never stopped tweeting. She said the newspaper unevenly punished journalists for what they wrote on Twitter, and critiqued her co-workers publicly. (Ms. Sonmez previously sued The Post for discrimination after she was barred from covering stories related to sexual assault after she publicly identified herself as a victim of assault. A judge dismissed the case in March.)
On top of all that, the Post has reportedly reassigned reporter Taylor Lorenz after the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard story went down in flames:
More news in here: @TaylorLorenz has been moved from the features staff to the technology team. Cameron Barr, the WaPo's No. 2 editor, has been asked to review her articles before publicationhttps://t.co/i5BZ72jsC6?
— Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) June 17, 2022
All this was a target-rich environment for Bill Maher, who summed up the sorry state of WaPo-style “journalism” in the course of just a few minutes:
Nothing captures what’s wrong with today’s “journalism” like the sad saga of what happened last week at The @WashingtonPost. pic.twitter.com/pqnPYNfT0g
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) June 18, 2022
“If someone named Deep Throat call the paper today and wanted to meet in a parking garage, this crew of emotional hemophiliacs would have an anxiety attack and report to HR that they didn’t feel safe.” Bingo!
Watching the Washington Post go into woke self-immolation was glorious. https://t.co/Gi80GBUpzV
— Andrea Katherine (@AndreaKatSTL) June 18, 2022
“Democracy Dies in Dumbness” sums all this up perfectly.
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