The New York Times is defending Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the controversial “1619 Project” after she doxed a reporter. The Times claimed Hannah-Jones “inadvertently” posted the reporter’s cell-phone number, even though she left the tweet up for 71 hours and responded to a Twitter user pointing out the number in a joking fashion, indicating she knew her tweet contained the number.
The situation began last week when a Times reporter, Donald McNeil, resigned from the newspaper after he used a racial slur during an educational trip with high school students in Peru. McNeil was asked by one of the students if a classmate should have been suspended for a video she made when she was 12 years old, in which she used a racial slur. McNeil said he asked the student if she had called someone else the slur or was rapping or quoting a book. In doing so, he used the slur himself.
Times editors Dean Baquet and Joe Kahn wrote of McNeil’s resignation, “We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.”
Hannah-Jones had previously used the slur in May 2016 while defending black comedian Larry Wilmore’s use of the word at the White House Correspondents Dinner, The Daily Wire’s Tim Pearce reported.
“Larry Wilmore did not say, ‘You did it, my n****r.’ Come on, now,” Hannah-Jones said at the time, using the full words without the asterisks.
Washington Free Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium reached out to Hannah-Jones regarding her use of the slur following the Times’ claim that it would not be tolerated “regardless of intent.” Hannah-Jones tweeted a screenshot of Sibarium’s email, which included his cell number to her more than 500,000 followers.
A spokeswoman for the Times defended Hannah-Jones to the Free Beacon, telling the outlet the Pulitzer-Prize winning author “inadvertently posted Aaron’s number when she tweeted an email she received from him.” The Times’ senior vice president of communications, Eileen Murphy, told National Review that “The inclusion of the phone number was inadvertent and when it was brought to Nikole’s attention, she deleted it.”
Sibarium posted a screenshot of a tweet that contradicted the Times’ defense of Hannah-Jones. The tweet remained up for 71 hours before Hannah-Jones deleted her entire Twitter history, including the tweets Sibarium originally asked about. During that time, another Twitter user, Dr. Uche Blackstock, pointed out Sibarium’s cell number by writing, “Lol and he included his phone number and thought you would actually call him. [Shaking my head.]” Hannah-Jones responded to Blackstock, saying, “Girl,” with a facepalm emoji.
The Twitter interaction took place nearly three days before Hannah-Jones finally deleted the tweet.
Sibarium said being doxxed was “more annoying than alarming,” adding that he received some “nasty voice messages but nothing serious.”
The Free Beacon’s editor in chief, Eliana Johnson, told National Review in an email that “The behavior and the Times’s disingenuous response speak for themselves.”