Media top headlines May 26
CNN's Jeff Zucker downplaying Chris Cuomo advising his brother as a 'mistake' and more round out today's top media headlines
Executives at the Associated Press reportedly acknowledged to staff that "mistakes" were made in the firing of its recently-hired news associate Emily Wilder.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that AP managing editor Brian Carovillano told staff during a town hall that while it was "the right decision" to terminate Wilder over her social media activity, he admitted there were "mistakes of process, and not of outcome."
AP assistant managing editor Julie Pace also acknowledged that the company "failed to initially see this as more than an HR issue" and failed to see "how this impacted our staff broadly in so many ways."
"We didn’t see the connection between the attacks that Emily suffered online and the experiences that many of you have had," Pace said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by the Post. "We didn’t anticipate that our own handling of the situation would be seen as an indication that we don’t have our staff’s back."
"We want to acknowledge that we made missteps in handling this crisis," AP deputy managing editor Amanda Barrett told staff. "Please know that the AP will protect you. We’ll have your back when you face threats online."
Wilder, who graduated from Stanford University in 2020 and had worked for the Arizona Republic, was fired on Friday after being the target of backlash from Stanford College Republicans, who drew attention to her activism on Twitter, referring to her as an "anti-Israel agitator" for protesting Birthright, a Jewish student travel program to Israel. She called the program "nothing more than ethnic nationalist propaganda" and accused Israel of engaging in "the ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians in Palestine."
More than 100 AP staffers had signed an open letter slamming the company's handling of Wilder and demanded answers.
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"As employees of The Associated Press, at all levels and across the globe, we strongly believe in our organization’s stated commitment to fairness and advancing the power of facts. Journalists demand transparency from the subjects of our reporting and seek to hold the powerful accountable," the AP staffers began the open letter. "That’s why we strongly disapprove of the way the AP has handled the firing of Emily Wilder and its dayslong silence internally. We demand more clarity from the company about why Wilder was fired. It remains unclear — to Wilder herself as well as staff at large — how she violated the social media policy while employed by the AP. We are also concerned about the ramifications of this decision for newsroom morale and AP’s credibility."
Wilder issued a statement on Saturday addressing what had transpired.
"I was transparent with my editors, and they assured me I would not face punishment for my previous activism. I was told my editors were only hoping to support me as I received an onslaught of sexist, antisemitic, racist and violent comments and messages," Wilder wrote. "Less than 48 hours later, the AP fired me… When I asked my managers which exact tweets were in violation of policy or how, they refused to tell me. In the end, rather than take whatever misstep I made as a teaching opportunity… it appears they took it as an opportunity to make me a scapegoat."
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She vowed she would "not be intimidated into silence" and that she "will be back soon."
The decision from the Associated Press to cut ties with Wilder comes just days after the news organization faced intense scrutiny over the revelation that it, among other media companies, was located in the same building in Gaza as the terrorist group Hamas, which was destroyed in an Israeli strike on Saturday. The AP denied having any knowledge of Hamas' presence in that building.