The New York Times Just Hired a New Lead Writer Who Uses Homophobic and Racial Slurs and Befriends Nazis

Ugly Slurs, Praise for a Nazi. What Is the New York Times Trying to Tell Us?

The New York Times just announced it has hired Quinn Norton as the editorial board’s lead opinion writer on the power, culture and consequences of technology.

Certainly an interesting position, and most people don’t know Quinn Norton, so they started to dig, where most people start to dig: Twitter.

As it turns out, Quinn Norton uses words like “fag,” and “faggot,” and “nigger.” “Fag” was a frequent favorite, apparently, for a few years:

Also, she once wrote a piece offering praise to a Nazi. Here’s how it starts:

John Rabe is my personal patron saint of moral complexity. Rabe was a Nazi who died after the war in 1950, broken and poor. 76 years ago this week, he started a committee that led to him being known as a “living Buddha” in China. There is nothing higher that can be said of a person than this.

And then there’s this tweet, in which Norton admits being friends with Nazis:

This pretty much sums up what some are saying:

Back in November The New York Times was accused of normalizing a Nazi sympathizer. The Times responded by saying: “What we think is indisputable, though, is the need to shed more light, not less, on the most extreme corners of American life and the people who inhabit them.”

Apparently now that includes hiring people who befriend Nazis too.

Here’s how many are reacting:

UPDATE: 8:45 PM ET –
HuffPost reports a NY Times spokesperson has told them “We are very concerned about the tweets that are circulating today and are looking into the matter.”

UPDATE: 10:20 PM ET –
The Daily Beast reports The New York Times has “fired” Norton. It’s actually not clear the Times “fired” her, rather, Norton posted on Twitter that she will not bet joining g the Times after all.

Regardless, The New York Times should not get a pass for this – they continue to make bad decisions in hiring (Bret Stephens comes to mind). The Times “reporting” delivering a warm portrait of a neo-Nazi, and its hiring someone who is friends with neo-Nazis is beyond acceptable.