The Washington Post has suspended journalist David Weigel without pay for retweeting a joke criticized for being distasteful and offensive to women.
A person familiar with the situation confirmed the news to CNN on Monday.
On Friday, Weigel retweeted YouTuber Cam Harless who joked, “Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.” Many Twitter users interpreted Weigel’s circulation of the joke as an endorsement of the seemingly sexist sentiment underlying the quip.
Weigel removed the retweet and apologized shortly after amplifying the joke, saying he “did not mean to cause any harm,” but the apology was not accepted by all of his colleagues. Felicia Sonmez, a national political reporter at the Post, blasted her coworker on Twitter, calling it “fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed.”
However, the staff of the Post seemed to be split on whether Sonmez’s reaction was warranted. Jose A. Del Real, a reporter and features writer at the Post said her cancellation campaign would do more harm than good.
“Felicia, we all mess up from time to time. Engaging in repeated and targeted public harassment of a colleague is neither a good look nor is it particularly effective. It turns the language of inclusivity into clout chasing and bullying. I don’t think this is appropriate,” he tweeted.
Del Real encouraged magnanimity towards their colleague while arguing that “Dave’s retweet is terrible and unacceptable. But rallying the internet to attack him for a mistake he made doesn’t actually solve anything. We all mess up in some way or another. There is such a thing as challenging with compassion.”
Sonmez claimed that Weigel’s retweet signaled a hostile attitude to women that conflicts with the Post‘s values and makes female writers like herself feel unwelcome.
“Jose, Dave’s retweet was indeed terrible and unacceptable. It was also public, and it’s important that all those who saw Dave’s tweet also see Washington Post reporters standing up for our newspaper’s values — one of which is that comments denigrating women will not be tolerated,” she replied.
She added that her inbox has been flooded with messages from women asking whether the Post is a newspaper that they can trust to be unbiased, objective, and representative of women if one of its writers harbors such antagonistic opinions about them.
After Weigel retweeted the joke, Sonmez messaged him in an internal company slack channel, writing “I’m sorry but what is this?,” according to an exchange obtained by CNN. Sonmez told Weigel in the channel that his retweet sent “a confusing message about what the Post’s values are.”
Beyond Weigel’s probation, drama with reporter Taylor Lorenz has also presented a PR nightmare for the Post. She is facing scrutiny for allegedly lying in a recent story about whether she had requested comment from two YouTube personalities who she accused of unfairly capitalizing on the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial to boost their public followings.
The two social media figures Lorenz targeted, “LegalBytes” host Alyte Mazeika and an anonymous user named ThatUmbrellaGuy, have repeatedly denied that she requested comment prior to the piece’s publication.
Weigel will return to the Post on July 5.