In her remarks, Weiss offered additional context to her scathing resignation letter from the paper last month.
“The reason that Twitter is the assigning editor of The New York Times is because the printing press isn’t the printing press anymore. It’s because the printing press is in each one of our pockets,” Weiss said.
“What I meant in that letter when I wrote that Twitter is the assigning editor,” she continued, “what I mean by that is in order to do our job well, writers and editors, we need to have a level of bravery and thick skin and fearlessness,” she added. “And when you’re living in fear of an online mob, you know, all it takes is a dozen people to repeat a lie about you — that you’re a racist, that you’re a transphobe, that you’re a bigot — for that lie to become true and that’s extremely dangerous.”
After months of tension and the unceremonious removal of her boss, James Bennet, Weiss bolted from the Times in spectacular fashion, citing a constant drumbeat of workplace harassment and feckless management.
“I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative,” she thundered to opinion editor A.G. Sulzberger. “New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.”
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