CNN (reproduction below), the Daily Beast and the New York Times reported this Thursday that the Washington Post’s management fired reporter Felicia Sonmez, who denounced colleagues and questioned Jeff Bezos’s own management of the newspaper.
Earlier this week, Sonmez had led fellow reporter David Weigel to be suspended for a month, without pay, for retweeting a sexist joke that said, “Every girl is bi. You just have to find out if it’s polar or sexual.”
The retweet was shared by Sonmez, mocking being “Fantastic work in a vehicle where retweets like this are allowed.” Other WPost journalists spoke out, via Twitter, in a growing conflict. Executive editor Sally Buzbee released two statements in a row, demanding restraint, but also ended up being questioned.
Sonmez lost two months ago a lawsuit against the newspaper and six of its editors, including former executive editor Martin Baron, whom she had accused of “discrimination” for preventing her from covering cases of alleged sexual harassment.
The first reactions from American journalists via Twitter, outside the WPost newsroom, include criticism of the direction (“motherfuckers“) and the reporter (“It’s what she wanted. Well, that’s a deal”).
