Did the New York Times Hire a Racist? Lessons of the Sarah Jeong Saga
The media world hailed a decision by the New York Times this week to add Sarah Jeong, a senior writer at the tech website The Verge, to its editorial board. Many saw it as a shrewd hire: Jeong, a Harvard Law graduate, is whip-smart. She also engages in a notably gutsy style of writing about the technology industry that’s all but absent from the pages of the Grey Lady. (One of her Verge stories from April: “I Tried Leaving Facebook. I Couldn’t.” Another from last month: “How a Cabal of Romance Writers Cashed In on Amazon Kindle Unlimited.”)
Then Thursday happened. A Twitter account that calls itself Human Garbage published a screenshot showing a collection of Jeong’s old tweets that contained racially inflammatory language. The screenshot doesn’t present the tweets in any sort of context, but some of Jeong’s phrases are jarring, including “dumbass f***ing white people” and “how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.” (Jeong is an American of Asian descent.)
Comments
Post a Comment