The Verge Defends Sarah Jeong’s Bigoted Tweets

Tech news site the Verge published an editorial piece recently defending New York Times tech writer Sarah Jeong’s racist tweets.

The Verge published an editorial piece recently with the subtitle “Newsrooms must stand up to targeted campaigns of harassment,” in which the sites editorial team defended the racist tweets of Sarah Jeong, a Verge reporter that has recently been hired to the New York Times editorial board. The Verge article called criticism of Jeong’s bigoted statements a “widespread campaign of harassment,” claiming that those now reacting to the tweets had “intentionally taken them out of context” which resulted in Jeong receiving an “unrelenting stream of abuse from strangers on the internet.”

The Verge article calls the backlash against Jeong “abusive,” “dishonest,” and “outrageous.” The article states:

You can read Sarah’s own statement about her tweets here. But as the editors of The Verge, we want to be clear: this abusive backlash is dishonest and outrageous. The trolls engaged in this campaign are using the same tactics that exploded during Gamergate, and they have been employed in recent years by even broader audiences amid a rise in hostility toward journalists. From cries about “ethics in journalism” to “fake news,” journalists have been increasingly targeted by people acting in bad faith who do not care about the work they do, the challenges they face, or the actual context of their statements.

The article further claims that “harassers” want publications to waste their time “debating their malicious agenda,” and that trolls are now taking tweets “out of context” in order to “harm individual reporters,”

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.

So we’re not going to fall for these disingenuous tactics. And it’s time other newsrooms learn to spot these hateful campaigns for what they are: attempts to discredit and undo the vital work of journalists who report on the most toxic communities on the internet. We are encouraged that our colleagues at The New York Times are standing by Sarah in the face of feigned outrage.

The editorial piece finishes by saying:

We have no doubt Sarah will continue to contribute thoughtful and rigorous reporting and analysis at the Times. She is an essential voice on technology and the internet, and we will all benefit from her continued work.

As of now, the Times is standing by their decision to hire Jeong, despite her own less than positive opinions on the New York Times:

I feel really bad for the 95% of the New York Times that already seethes with resentment over their horrible columnists

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) April 30, 2017

NYT Opinion = Thought Catalog for Baby Boomers

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) June 17, 2015