New York Times Defends Reporter Sarah Jeong After Trolls Dig Up Her ‘Racist’ Tweets

The New York Times is defending its decision to hire South Korean-born writer Sarah Jeong after a series of her old tweets aimed at White people recently resurfaced on Twitter.

Many of Jeong’s unearthed tweets date back to 2013 and 2014 when she used the hashtag #cancelwhitepeople.

“Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men,” Jeong wrote in another post that has since gone viral.

The tweets have appeared in The Daily Caller, National Review, The Federalist and other conservative publications.

In response to the controversy, the Times issued a statement on Thursday, pointing out that as a young Asian woman, Jeong has been “a subject of frequent online harassment,” resulting in “imitating the rhetoric of her harassers.”

Our statement in response to criticism of the hiring of Sarah Jeong. pic.twitter.com/WryIgbaoqg

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) August 2, 2018

“We had candid conversations with Sarah as part of our thorough vetting process, which included a review of her social media history,” the publication wrote. “She understands that this type of rhetoric is not acceptable at The Times and we are confident that she will be an important voice for the editorial board moving forward.”

Jeong also issued an apology, accompanied by screenshots of some of the hateful messages she receives from online trolls.

pic.twitter.com/4GfD2nGxwD

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) August 2, 2018

“While it was intended as satire, I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers,” she wrote. “These comments were not aimed at a general audience, because general audiences do not engage in harassment campaigns. I can understand how hurtful these posts are out of context, and would not do it again.”

Even Dr. Eugene Gu has come out in support of Jeong:

Sarah Jeong is being targeted by the white supremacy movement on social media. I will not stand silent about this, no matter the backlash. Asian Americans have been silent for far too long and we should not be shamed into silence forever.

— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) August 2, 2018

Fellow journalists also took to Twitter to voice their opinions for and against Jeong:

Sarah Jeong is supremely talented and we are lucky to have her join the times. Proud to call her a colleague.

— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) August 2, 2018

We are proud of the work that @sarahjeong has done at The Verge, which reflects her brilliance and empathy for everyone around her. All of us stand by Sarah; digging for old, out-of-context tweets in bad faith to drum up outrage is bad for the news and society at large. https://t.co/cebnIB3QjG

— nilay patel (@reckless) August 2, 2018

Sarah Jeong is a badass & reverse racism is not a thing
Sarah Jeong is a badass & reverse racism is not a thing
Sarah Jeong is a badass & reverse racism is not a thing
Sarah Jeong is a badass & reverse racism is not a thing
Sarah Jeong is a badass & reverse racism is not a

— Evan Greer (@evan_greer) August 2, 2018

Sarah Jeong is one of the very best writing about the intersection of law and tech and tech culture. That’s all. I’m not going to convince you of a damn thing about this controversy.

— QHatSecretMessages (@Popehat) August 2, 2018

I’m calling BS on the NYT for defending Sarah Jeong.

Getting harassed is no excuse for posting blanket statements insulting and attacking people based on race or gender.

That and they even fired Quinn Norton for similar things.https://t.co/7zj8r5JkRo

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) August 2, 2018

Okay so I finally read those Sarah Jeong tweets and I dunno man, I don’t see how they can be saved by contextual argumentation. I think she really is just a garden-variety casual racist, albeit towards a subgroup it’s socially permissible to express bigoted thoughts toward.

— Jeff B. (@EsotericCD) August 2, 2018

After the Times’ statement, Jeong’s former colleagues at The Verge issued their own statement on the criticisms:

“Online trolls and harassers want us, the Times, and other newsrooms to waste our time by debating their malicious agenda. They take tweets and other statements out of context because they want to disrupt us and harm individual reporters. The strategy is to divide and conquer by forcing newsrooms to disavow their colleagues one at a time. This is not a good-faith conversation; it’s intimidation.”