One of the big issues of corporate management in our time is a lesson that could be learned on any elementary-school playground: Cowards can’t control sadists.
There isn’t anything serious in the campaign against Dave Weigel at the Washington Post. Some people just like to hurt people, and Weigel, who has written at times about his own problems with depression, is the sort of person who is easy to hurt.
This is an easy problem to solve — ask the management at Netflix. If the Post had any self-respect, an editor would hand Felicia Sonmez a shoebox and tell her to clean out her desk. The challenge isn’t solving the problem — the challenge is having the kind of people who will solve the problem. Cowards can’t manage sadists. It just doesn’t work.
So, maybe stop being cowards.