AP Picture/Mark Lennihan

New York Times Writer A.G. Sulzberger spoke to the paper’s staff at the annual State of The Instances assembly on Thursday and addressed a host of issues including misinformation within the media, union negotiations, and the recent controversy surrounding the paper’s protection of trans rights, which Sulzberger mentioned has resulted in harassment of some Occasions reporters. Sulzberger even stated an incident in which one writer was “spat on” in her own local closing weekend.

Sulzberger defended the paper’s coverage of the transgender group, saying, “We remember the fact that out of doors groups will always attempt to influence our work. But through specializing in a handful of particular person tales — even person sentences and sources that they disagree with — these campaigning to discredit our coverage additionally put out of your mind how thoughtfully and widely we’ve explored this subject.”

In mid-February, one of the most largest companies preventing for LGBTQ+ rights within the U.S. these days launched a scathing letter anxious changes on the Times over what the masses of signatories see as “biased coverage of transgender people” within the Instances.

“We gained’t stand for the Occasions platforming lies, bias, fringe theories, and bad inaccuracies,” the letter learn, including, “We demand honest coverage, we demand that the Occasions platform trans voices as each sources and full-time writers and editors, and we demand a gathering between Instances leadership and the transgender neighborhood.”

The criticism, backed with the aid of tons of of celebrities, activists, and even Times contributors, ended in interior divisions throughout the paper and ongoing divisions within the group, together with a letter by means of outstanding Times journalists slamming the head of their very own union for backing the criticism under the guise that the trans protection on the paper created a opposed work surroundings.

Instances correspondent Jeremy Peters drafted a reply, signed through dozens of top writers together with Peter Baker, Charlie Savage, Michael Grynbaum, and Kate Zernike denouncing the union’s stance as undermining “the moral and skilled protections that we rely on to protect the independence and integrity of our journalism.”

Sulzberger too defended the journalistic integrity of the paper’s coverage, saying:

We’ve documented the worrying wave of anti-trans rules advancing in statehouses across the us of a; we’ve particular the horrific violence and discrimination trans individuals face; and we’ve illuminated the lives and experiences of trans folks here and world wide.

And on account that our journalists involved in this coverage have additionally faced nonstop attacks, let me additionally say that the associated fee of reporting moderately and independently about any subject should no longer be months of threats and harassment. We even had a colleague involved in this coverage confronted in her neighborhood final weekend and spat on.

While Sulzberger didn’t elaborate on the incident, he did word that different writers on the paper “who have been additionally attacked for sensitive reporting on trans issues,” together with Megan Twohey, Christina Jewett, Azeen Ghorayshi, Michael Powell, and Katie Baker.

“I can not tell you how bothered I’m by means of how widespread it has turn into for newsroom colleagues who’re merely doing their jobs — and doing them with big difference — to be targeted with the aid of activist campaigns geared toward intimidation, whether it’s Nikole Hannah-Jones’s work on race; Apoorva Mandavilli’s work on Covid-19; Maggie Haberman’s work on politics; Muyi Xiao’s work in China; or Farnaz Fassihi’s work on Iran,” Sulzberger added. concluding:

On the coronary heart of this criticism is a growing polarization that makes it easier than ever for people to avoid views and experiences different from their own. Our job is to provide the home windows that foster working out throughout these differences. As a result of working out, especially in one of the vital diverse international locations on the earth, permits individuals to come back together.

The publish New York Instances Reporter ‘Spat On’ in Public Through Individual Enraged By Paper’s Trans Coverage first regarded on Mediaite.