Out Journalist Tweets 'Chills' Over Biden. Gets Canned by the New York Times. Then They Slammed Her

"Biden landing at Joint Base Andrews now. I have chills," tweeted New York Times editor Lauren Wolfe on January 19. Two days later she was out of a job, let go by the Times. And the world learned of it, not surprisingly, in a tweet.

The Daily Mail reports: "Lauren Wolfe lost her gig with the Times, where she had started working last May, after a manager contacted her to say that the publication could not be associated with tweet, she told the Washington Post."

On the WP's opinion blog by Eric Wemple, Wolfe said, "that an editor at the paper contacted her after she published the 'chills' tweet. The Times couldn't be associated with such a tweet, said the manager, and that her gig with the paper would be ending. Months ago, recalls Wolfe, she received a warning from the same manager about her Twitter activity; as an example, he cited a tweet in which, Wolfe says, she'd connected the resistance of conservative men to wearing masks to 'toxic masculinity.' She deleted the tweet. But, according to Wolfe, the manager said her posts in general were 'borderline' and that other Times staffers had done 'worse.' "

The NYTimes social media policy for its journalists and editorial staff requires them to remain impartial in their online posting. "If our journalists are perceived as biased or if they engage in editorializing on social media, that can undercut the credibility of the entire newsroom," its policy states. "We've always made clear that newsroom employees should avoid posting anything on social media that damages our reputation for neutrality and fairness."

It first appeared that Wolfe's tweet was the reason for her dismissal. She told Wemple, the tweet was "the only reason they fired me."

But after a torrent of social media criticism, "the New York Times on Sunday sought to correct what it called 'incorrect information' regarding a freelance editor, Lauren Wolfe, with whom the paper cut ties after a tweet some conservatives claimed showed bias," wrote the Washington Post in a separate news story. The Times denied on Sunday that there was a direct connection between Wolfe's pro-Biden tweet and the end of her working relationship with the newspaper.

"There's a lot of inaccurate information circulating on Twitter," spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha told The Washington Post. "For privacy reasons we don't get into the details of personnel matters, but we can say that we didn't end someone's employment over a single tweet. Out of respect for the individuals involved, we don't plan to comment further."

The Times also clarified their employment relationship with Wolfe, noting she was not a full-time employee or have a contract, but was a freelancer.

Wemple was blunt in his criticism of the Times for its statement: "What a dreadful statement: On the one hand, the Times wishes to limit 'the details of personnel matters.' On the other hand, it clearly insinuates that there were unspecified instances of substandard performance by Wolfe. When the Erik Wemple Blog asked the Times to provide some specifics, spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha declined to comment further."

Wolfe told Wemple that working at the Times was her "dream job," but added that, "Every day, I was scared I was going to do something wrong," She added that her edits and her reporting were clean. "So whatever they're implying, it's a shot at my reputation, which I worked very carefully to build."

"On Saturday, Wolfe addressed the severing of her relationship with the Times, arguing that she was the victim of a partisan battle," adds the WP. "Hard to fathom all the talk of 'cancel culture' on my timeline while I'm left without an income during a pandemic," she tweeted. "I'm not an ideology, I'm a hard-working person who can no longer pay her bills."

For her part, Wolfe has tweeted that she doesn't want the Times cancelled (literally) by subscribers, and also her admiration for her colleagues at the paper. She also said she has no interest in returning, but wants the Times to retract their statement.

And Wolfe may have the last laugh. All the attention has spotlighted her work as an investigative journalist at Foreign Policy and author of a years-long investigation of violent rapes against children in a village in eastern Congo. And, as Forbes puts it, "The Times may have taken Wolfe's platform away from her, but now she has a new one. Better yet, a platform that's completely her own. She's joined the growing number of journalists relying on the Substack platform to communicate with readers directly. And she even came up with the perfect title for the Substack newsletter she's now launched in the wake of all this."

Called "Chills," her first post is titled, "Is it cold in here?"

In it, she makes her case. "I was fired from my only straight news job I've ever had last week – because I expressed emotion publicly on something I should not have, according to the publication. (Ahem, The New York Times.) The lashing I got from the right (including creepy sexual death threats) was equally met with outrage on the left, and even from people in the middle who didn't think journalists should be robots.

"None of the incredible journalists I worked with at the Times are robots. Most are smart, feeling people. But when I worked there, I felt like my whole body was in a shoe that was just a little too tight."