Advertisement
IRL

New York Times hires, then fires, tech journalist who used racist, homophobic slurs

She has called a neo-Nazi ‘an old friend of mine.’

Photo of Ana Valens

Ana Valens

Tech journalist Quinn Norton was let go from the New York Times after users discovered several insensitive tweets.

On Tuesday, tech journalist Quinn Norton was named to the New York Times’ editorial board as its new lead opinion writer covering tech. However, it didn’t take long for Twitter users to point out a series of tweets from Norton in which she used racist and homophobic slurs, prompting the print publication to let her go hours later.

Featured Video

Norton has had an immense influence on tech journalism, serving both as a writer for Wired as well as Gizmodo and the Atlantic. But shortly after the Times announced her hire on Tuesday, her friendship with American neo-Nazi Andrew “weev” Auernheimer came to light. She previously called him “an old friend of mine,” defending her connection with him while admitting he is “terrible.”

This already didn’t sit well with the internet, especially in light of a column she wrote on the moral complexity of John Rabe, a Nazi Party member who helped Chinese citizens escape Japanese war atrocities. Then people unearthed tweets in which Norton used homophobic and racist slurs. Particularly, she openly used the N-word during an analogy on terrorism, retweeted a joke with the N-word about President Obama, and repeatedly used the words “fag” and “faggot” in conversation with others during 2013 and 2014.

“Here’s the deal, faggot,” Norton wrote in one tweet from 2013. “Free speech comes with responsibility. not legal, but human. grown up. you can do this.”

Advertisement

https://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/395843433665150976

https://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/361061573760008192

https://twitter.com/eminentgent/status/963594491319013376

Advertisement

Shortly after Norton’s tweets surfaced, the New York Times said it was “very concerned” with her statements, vowing to investigate them. This eventually led the Times to let her go.

“Despite our review of Quinn Norton’s work and our conversations with her previous employers, this was new information to us,” Times editorial page editor James Bennet said in an official statement. “Based on it, we’ve decided to go our separate ways.”

Advertisement

Norton’s career at the Times may be incredibly short-lived, but her hiring continues to cause an online stir, with many Twitter users complaining that the American print publication didn’t look deep enough into Norton’s background before bringing her on. Many are left wondering whether the Times has made the same mistake with other editorial staff members, too.

Advertisement

https://twitter.com/chrisfarnsworth/status/963528598836555777

Advertisement

Advertisement

Some believe Norton’s hiring follows a longer legacy in which the Times purposefully hires far-right thinkers who espouse harmful ideas and skew facts to stir controversy and garner clicks.

https://twitter.com/elongreen/status/963612975692177408

Advertisement

https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/963536523449774080

https://twitter.com/arieljrob1/status/963525815479742464

Others compared her short-but-controversial tenor to another outspoken firebrand.

https://twitter.com/emmaschuetz/status/963599731111878656

Advertisement

Norton has since changed her Twitter display name to “Well that was fun,” defending her tweets and saying there is “no harm no foul” toward the Times for dropping her.

“I’m sorry I can’t do the work I wanted to do with them,” she tweeted last night. “I wish there had been a way, but ultimately, they need to feel safe with how the net will react to their opinion writers.”

H/T the Daily Beast

 
The Daily Dot