The New York Times rebuked one of its staffers, deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman, on Thursday after he posted several problematic tweets that many saw as racist over the past week.
“Jonathan has repeatedly displayed poor judgment on social media and in responding to criticism,” a Times spokesperson told TPM in an emailed statement. “We’re closely examining what to do about it.”
On Wednesday, Weisman tweeted that advocacy group Justice Democrats had backed a congressional candidate “seeking to unseat an African-American Democrat,” even though said candidate is, in fact, black.
After author Roxane Gay called out Weisman for the tweets, the reporter emailed Gay demanding an “enormous apology” from her.
Gay, who is set to publish a column on Toni Morrison for the Times tomorrow, tweeted screenshots of the email, adding, “The audacity and entitlement of white men is fucking incredible.”
Weisman first came under fire last week when he tweeted that Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) weren’t truly from the Midwest and Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and John Lewis (D-GA) weren’t truly from the Deep South because all four reps come from metropolitan cities.
People of color are rootless cosmopolitans from nowhere pic.twitter.com/92zXGSNcmn
— hogling (@bureaudebrain) July 31, 2019
After critics slammed him for implying non-whites from big cities don’t represent true Midwesterners or Southerners, Weisman deleted the tweet.
However, that debacle led to the resurfacing of a similarly problematic tweet he’d posted in 2016:
Defeated Dems could've tapped Rust Belt populist to head party. Instead, black, Muslim progressive from Minneapolis? https://t.co/VLfMcEtMka
— (((JonathanWeisman))) (@jonathanweisman) November 11, 2016
