NYT Stands By New Tech Writer After Old Tweets Resurface

The organization is standing by tech writer Sarah Jeong.

new york times
The New York Times Office in New York City. (Wikimedia Commons)

The New York Times is standing by its hiring of tech writer Sarah Jeong despite some criticism aimed at her over old tweets of hers. Several tweets have gone viral, with people claiming that they are derogatory of white people, reports Fox News. 

“Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men,” Jeong wrote in July 2014 in one of the tweets, according to Fox. 

Images of the tweets from an unverified Twitter account that potentially belong to Jeong were posted on Wednesday, shortly after The Times announced she was joining the paper. The Times has since released a statement, saying they reviewed her social media history during the hiring process and was standing by the decision to hire her.

“We hired Sarah Jeong because of the exceptional work she has done … her journalism and the fact that she is a young Asian woman have made her a subject of frequent online harassment. For a period of time she responded to that harassment by imitating the rhetoric of her harassers,” The Times said in a statement, according to Fox. “She regrets it, and The Times does not condone it.”

Jeong also issued a statement, saying she engaged in what she “thought of at the time as counter-trolling.”

When they hired her, The Times released a press release, saying Jeong was “staying ahead of every turn on the vast beat that is the internet.” Jeong, who previously worked at The Verge, was hired as the lead technology writer for the paper.

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