2 NY Times Staffers Resign

Two New York Times journalists resigned Friday amid public controversies over their past behavior — with science reporter Donald McNeil and Andy Mills, a producer on the botched “Caliphate” podcast, each stepping down.

McNeil’s resignation came after more than 150 Times staffers reportedly sent a letter to the Grey Lady’s honchos this week demanding he be “disciplined” after it emerged that he said the N-word on a Times-sponsored student trip to Peru in 2019.

Don McNeil

McNeil, who spearheaded the paper’s coverage of COVID-19, admitted in a statement that he used a “racial slur” — though said it was in the context of quoting a student who had asked “whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used” the term.

“To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.

“I should not have done that. Originally, I thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended.

Andy Mills

“It is deeply offensive and hurtful. The fact that I even thought I could defend it itself showed extraordinarily bad judgement. For that I apologize.”

In a statement to staffers about McNeil, top Times editors Dan Banquet and Joe Kahn said, “We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.”

Meanwhile, Mills had faced his own brewing storm when old allegations that he harassed female coworkers at a former job resurfaced.

In his resignation published online, Mills admitted to bad behavior while working as a producer for the WNYC show “Radiolab” — including giving one colleague an unwanted backrub and pouring a drink on a coworker’s head at a party seven years ago — but said he was stepping down over an “online campaign” that had painted him as a “predator.”

“I look back at those actions with extraordinary regret and embarrassment,” he wrote Friday.