Over the weekend The New York Times became engulfed in a Category 5 shitstorm for terminating the employment of a freelance editor, Lauren Wolfe, after she tweeted about having “chills” watching Joe Biden’s plane land as he was en route to his inauguration. (Wolfe also tweeted that it was “mortifying” and “childish” for the Trump administration not to send Biden a military plane, but she deleted that one after acknowledging it was inaccurate.) It was the latest in a seemingly never-ending series of Twitter-fueled controversies that tend to befall the paper of record, and it ignited a fiery debate that touched on everything from social media standards and notions of objectivity to cancel culture and the inequity of the journalistic star system.
“Journalists should be judged by the fairness of their *work* - not a random tweet or passing comment or private email in which those human biases are expressed,” tweeted 60 Minutes correspondent Wesley Lowery. “Gutless and reactionary responses to bad faith online outrage are more embarrassing to and undermining of perceived integrity of a media institution than whatever the staffer tweeted.” Alyssa Milano implored her 3.7 million followers to “tweet at the @nytimes and tell them to #rehireLauren.”
As the situation snowballed, there was also a palpable yearning for more information about what was behind the Times’ decision. Was Wolfe a sacrificial lamb thrown overboard in the face of bad faith criticism? Had the Times overreacted to what could be interpreted as an expression of relief given the authoritarian bullet America just dodged? Or was there more to the story?
I checked in with a number of senior Times sources on Sunday, and they all told me the same thing: Wolfe had previously been cautioned about her social media behavior. A manager gave her a warning months ago after staffers expressed discomfort with certain tweets she was told bordered on being political. My sources emphasized that Wolfe was not a full Times employee—her position on the “flexible editing desk,” which springs into action during heavy news cycles and staffing shortages, was a temporary one. But sources also told me that even though Wolfe was brought on as a “casual” (Times jargon for freelance editor), she was pursuing a full-time position on a newly created live-journalism team headed up by assistant managing editor Marc Lacey. Whether her employment could or would become permanent was yet to be seen. According to someone with knowledge of the phone call in which Wolfe was let go, she was told that her name and the Times’ name were in headlines all over the place, and “we can’t have that.”
When I touched base with the Times on Sunday afternoon, a spokeswoman told me, “There’s a lot of inaccurate information circulating on Twitter. For privacy reasons we don’t get into the details of personnel matters, but we can say that we didn’t end someone’s employment over a single tweet. Out of respect for the individuals involved, we don’t plan to comment further.”
Whether or not you agree with the Times, it’s arguable whether Wolfe’s termination warranted a big Daily Mail article or the unpleasantness of being trailed by a paparazzo for Splash News. If nothing else, the episode shows how quickly a single, seemingly innocuous tweet can rapidly spiral into the type of viral media scandal that no one wants to find themselves in the middle of. It’s also indicative of the added heat the Times is facing right now for a couple of reasons. Part of it has to do with lingering fallout from the Times’ handling of its megahit Caliphate podcast, core elements of which recently fell apart under scrutiny. (Reporter Rukmini Callimachi was reassigned to a different beat as a result of the errors, but people have raised questions about why the Times didn’t similarly discipline producer Andy Mills; Michael Barbaro, host of sister podcast The Daily, apologized after facing criticism for discouraging outside reporting on the ordeal.)
Another part of it simply has to do with the transition away from the chaos and hostility of the Trump era. Major news outlets like the Times are relieved to no longer have a president who constantly calls them “fake news” and “the enemy of the people,” but they also don’t want to be seen as overly friendly to the norm-abiding Biden administration. As one Times journalist put it, “You’d think under all this added scrutiny, the company would be more transparent about how they go about these things. A lot of people inside were scratching their heads about how they handled this one.”
Wolfe didn’t have a comment when I got ahold of her on Sunday night. But earlier in the day, she tweeted, “I truly appreciate everyone’s support but I need to ask you a favor: PLEASE don’t unsubscribe from @nytimes. I have loved this paper and its mission my whole life. Their journalism is some of the most important & best in the world, & they need to be read widely. Thank you.”
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