Former New York Times reporter Donald McNeil blamed the Gray Lady on Monday for aggravating the N-word debacle that torpedoed his career as he aired a self-defense online.
In a four-part, four-part publication in Medium, the journalist, who spent 45 years in the newspaper, opened up about the scandal that erupted over comments he made during a 2019 student trip to Peru.
“I never dreamed that one of the two trips to Peru I made, which for me were just in my life, which I had done largely as a favor to a friend who needed experts to sell the trips, it would sink my career in the Times, ”McNeil wrote in the first four-part publication in Medium.
In late January, the Daily Beast reported claims that McNeil, who most recently led the COVID-19 newspaper cover, dropped the word N and other offensive comments during the trip.
McNeil, who has kept his mother public about the matter after his resignation letter last month, criticized the Times for its reaction to the impending Daily Beast story.
After the Beast contacted McNeil on Jan. 28 to comment on his report, he said the Times went into a “completely freakout message control mode,” calling on him to immediately issue an apology. and eliminating the extracted explanations he initially wanted. send to the Beast.
“If the Times hadn’t panicked and been allowed to send me some version of it, maybe the Beast would have rewritten or even published its story,” McNeil said. “Almost certainly, the reaction within the Times itself would have been different.”
Four days later, McNeil claims that Times executive editor Dean Baquet and co-editor Carolyn Ryan “twisted their arms” to consider resigning, prompting them to say no and to resign. complied.
“You lost the wording,” Baquet, a longtime McNeil’s colleague, told him during the phone call. “Many of your colleagues are injured. Many of them will not work with you. Thanks for writing the apologies. But we’d like you to consider adding that you’re leaving. “
McNeil’s resignation, along with the departure of Andy Mills, co-host of the “Caliphate” podcast, was announced on Feb. 5 in a statement noting that “this is the next right step.”
McNeil, who made use of the word N in his resignation letter, said some assumed he was racist are “quite baffling and painful.”
“Am I racist? I don’t think so, after working in 60 countries for over 25 years, I think I’m pretty good at judging people as individuals, ”he said in the message, which he said had been previously reviewed by two lawyers.
He added, “What particularly baffled me was that someone looked at my work and came to the conclusion that I would have chosen my pace if I were a racist and could have survived for so long,” and noted a number of It has won awards for its coverage in countries such as Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria and Haiti.
McNeil said he was paid $ 300 a day to accompany students from private schools across Peru – and give three “global health” talks, as well as “make myself available to students as much as possible” – and apart from the document “Student Travel”.
The veteran journalist suggested that his conversations with young people could have been misinterpreted due to a generational gap.
“My girlfriend thinks I have a well-functioning Asperger’s aspect in my personality – I’m empathetic about suffering, but I also read the audience very badly,” she wrote.
“So, I was five decades older than the students in Peru and I was out of touch with their sensitivity? Absolutely. Did you have prospects to offer that you didn’t get to prep school? I think so.”
McNeil, 67, whose work on the pandemic was submitted for consideration by the Pulitzer Prize, also questioned the timing of the allegations.
“I have been asked many times: who was the source of the Daily Beast? And why was it leaked now, just when looking for a Pulitzer? “said the journalist.
“The answer is: I have no idea. The story includes a quote from an internal Times email, so I have to assume it was leaked from within. But you never know. And why? I do not know.”
McNeil said she had used the word N in response to a conversation she was having with a student about “if she thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old girl in what he used ”Recreation.
He said the other allegedly offensive comments were misinterpreted.
McNeil pledged to debate the issue only on March 1, when his resignation was made official.
At the end of his long career, he lamented the scandal that tarnished his decades-long reputation as a science journalist on global health issues.
“Obviously, that year I misjudged my audience in Peru. I thought that in general I was arguing in favor of an open mind and tolerance, but it was clearly not like that, ”he wrote. “And my cherry makes me an imperfect pedagogue for sensitive teens.”
“And now I want to leave this behind. He hoped to be remembered as a good scientific reporter, whose work saved lives. Not for that. ”