The Washington Post has fired Felicia Sonmez, who triggered a vigorous on-line debate this week over social media coverage and public therapy of colleagues after she criticized a fellow reporter for retweeting an offensive joke.
The Post mentioned Friday it could not touch upon personnel points. But a duplicate of a termination letter despatched Thursday, accusing her of “insubordination, maligning your coworkers online and violating the Post’s standards on workplace collegiality and inclusivity” was printed on the Mediaite web site and quoted in different information accounts.
The outspoken political author, whose second stint on the Post started in 2018, declined remark Friday.
The incident started when Sonmez tweeted a screenshot of an offensive joke {that a} colleague, Dave Weigel, had despatched out on Twitter, including the remark: “Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed.” The Post suspended Weigel for a month for his retweet, in response to printed studies.
That prompted one other reporter, Jose Del Real, to criticize Sonmez on-line. While saying Weigel had been incorrect, Del Real referred to as for compassion. “Rallying the Internet to attack him for a mistake he made doesn’t actually solve anything,” he wrote.
That led to a contentious back-and-forth, with Sonmez accusing Del Real of attacking her.
As an internet debate widened and drew in additional folks, Post govt editor Sally Buzbee despatched out two memos calling on employees members to indicate respect for one another. The second, on Tuesday, was extra stern: Buzbee wrote that “we do not tolerate colleagues attacking colleagues either face to face or online.”
As it consumed extra consideration, a handful of Post workers tweeted their help of the newspaper as a superb place to work. Sonmez famous that these folks had been among the many newspaper’s best-paid stars and steered there was a longstanding double customary in how social media coverage is utilized to them.
She additionally retweeted a screenshot that mentioned Del Real had blocked her on Twitter, including the remark, “So I hear the Washington Post is a collegial workplace.”
While it was consuming consideration, one other Post reporter, Lisa Rein, tweeted to Sonmez: “please stop.”
Sonmez, who labored within the early 2010s, left and rejoined, sued the Post and its high editors final 12 months, charging discrimination in barring her from masking tales associated to sexual assault after she had beforehand gone public as an assault sufferer herself.
Her termination was first reported by the Daily Beast and has been lined by the Post itself. In the termination letter, signed by Human Resources Officer Wayne Connell, the Post mentioned that in questioning the motives of colleagues, Sonmez was undermining the Post’s fame for journalistic integrity and equity.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”