The newspaper said award-winning journalist Jazmine Hughes resigned after violating newsroom policy by signing a public statement protesting Israeli actions.
It’s wild that we live in such polarized times that every single comment in this thread is talking about how this is wrong because of some variant of “she’s being fired for calling it like it is.”
That’s not what happened. She was fired (forced to resign, same difference) because she went on record with a political viewpoint and made value judgements. YOU DONT GET TO DO THAT AS A JOURNALIST. It doesn’t matter if she’s right (she is, in my opinion, before someone accused me of supporting apartheid and misses the point). What matters is she has taken away any appearance of being unbiased, both for her and by association for the paper. It’s crazy damaging and the Times should have fired her instead of letting her resign. This is like journalistic ethics 101. My parents were both journalists and wouldn’t even talk to me about who they voted for - and they weren’t even in hard news.
I know these days there are so many biased news agencies and lots of opinions masquerading as news, but for hard news agencies this kind of thing does not, and should not fly. The woman was dumb and I hope she was ready for a career writing op-eds and being a partisan talking head, because she’ll never write hard news at a reputable source again.
This is stupid, she’s a human first, and journalist second. If aliens were committing genocide on humans would you still have the same opinion?
We should be allowed to have and express opinions. How many reporters use the words terrorist? Freedom fighter? You can’t police people’s bias, nor should you.
You literally can police people’s bias if they want to be a good journalist. That’s why the NYT has a clear policy on this stuff, that she violated twice! Some people can’t control their biases or don’t want to, and that’s fine. They don’t get to be journalists at organizations that have to maintain strict impartiality.
Also, if you think the newsroom doesn’t have deeply debated guidelines and rules on how and when you use the label terrorist vs freedom fighter, or how to avoid using either term, you’re kidding yourself. This is why editors exist.
You’re literally advocating for what is essentially approved propaganda. That you think there is an objectively correct bias terrifies me, and if you had sense, it would terrify you too.
There is no such thing as objective truth, just perception and bias, and you truly believe it’s not okay to speak out against genocide?
I hope the history books of the future describe the atrocities of the present, because clearly we can’t rely on the news.
I think the point was more that an institution like the times doesn’t want to appear to be doing anything other than providing plain facts that don’t lead people into thinking one way or the other about a given thing so that their reporting can be trusted as not being propaganda.
It’s the difference between saying “stupid asshat Donald Trump, who’s obviously a criminal, was found guilty of the fraud we all knew he did.” And “A judge convicted Donald Trump of fraud.” That’s not propaganda, that’s just stating plain facts that don’t try to leave any impression on the reader which is important for trust.
It’s wild that we live in such polarized times that every single comment in this thread is talking about how this is wrong because of some variant of “she’s being fired for calling it like it is.”
That’s not what happened. She was fired (forced to resign, same difference) because she went on record with a political viewpoint and made value judgements. YOU DONT GET TO DO THAT AS A JOURNALIST. It doesn’t matter if she’s right (she is, in my opinion, before someone accused me of supporting apartheid and misses the point). What matters is she has taken away any appearance of being unbiased, both for her and by association for the paper. It’s crazy damaging and the Times should have fired her instead of letting her resign. This is like journalistic ethics 101. My parents were both journalists and wouldn’t even talk to me about who they voted for - and they weren’t even in hard news.
I know these days there are so many biased news agencies and lots of opinions masquerading as news, but for hard news agencies this kind of thing does not, and should not fly. The woman was dumb and I hope she was ready for a career writing op-eds and being a partisan talking head, because she’ll never write hard news at a reputable source again.
This is stupid, she’s a human first, and journalist second. If aliens were committing genocide on humans would you still have the same opinion?
We should be allowed to have and express opinions. How many reporters use the words terrorist? Freedom fighter? You can’t police people’s bias, nor should you.
You literally can police people’s bias if they want to be a good journalist. That’s why the NYT has a clear policy on this stuff, that she violated twice! Some people can’t control their biases or don’t want to, and that’s fine. They don’t get to be journalists at organizations that have to maintain strict impartiality.
Also, if you think the newsroom doesn’t have deeply debated guidelines and rules on how and when you use the label terrorist vs freedom fighter, or how to avoid using either term, you’re kidding yourself. This is why editors exist.
You’re literally advocating for what is essentially approved propaganda. That you think there is an objectively correct bias terrifies me, and if you had sense, it would terrify you too.
There is no such thing as objective truth, just perception and bias, and you truly believe it’s not okay to speak out against genocide?
I hope the history books of the future describe the atrocities of the present, because clearly we can’t rely on the news.
I think the point was more that an institution like the times doesn’t want to appear to be doing anything other than providing plain facts that don’t lead people into thinking one way or the other about a given thing so that their reporting can be trusted as not being propaganda.
It’s the difference between saying “stupid asshat Donald Trump, who’s obviously a criminal, was found guilty of the fraud we all knew he did.” And “A judge convicted Donald Trump of fraud.” That’s not propaganda, that’s just stating plain facts that don’t try to leave any impression on the reader which is important for trust.