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In more than a dozen tweets Tuesday morning, a female Washington Post reporter accused the newspaper of ignoring complaints about a male colleague’s “sexist” social media posts.
Political reporter Felicia Sonmez, who condemned her colleague David Weigel in a public Twitter lawsuit last week for retweeting a joke about women, also questioned the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper’s commitment to tolerance and diversity in its Twitter thread.
“A female colleague in the newsroom told me before this final episode that she flagged one of @daveweigel’s tweets for an editor,” Sönmez said in a tweet. He told the editor that he would likely be scolded for the same tweet. Editor’s answer? ‘You are not Dave Weigel.’
On Wednesday, Mr. Weigel retweeted the joke: “Every girl is bisexual. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.”
Ms Sonmez replied on Friday: “It’s great to work at a news source that allows retweets like this!”
Mr. Weigel, whom the newspaper suspended for a month without payment on Monday, deleted his post and apologized, but that apology failed to end the public exchange.
The feud escalated when news reporter Jose Del Real criticized Sönmez in a tweet for “raising the internet to attack him for a mistake he made”.
Mr. Del Real, who describes himself as a “gay Mexican American”, told Ms Sonmez that his response to Weigel’s “unacceptable” tweet “fixed nothing”.
As the discussion continued over the weekend, Washington Post Editor-in-Chief Sally Buzbee sent a note warning reporters to maintain an “inclusive and respectful environment.”
“When issues arise, please raise them with leadership or human resources and we will address them promptly and definitively,” said Ms. Buzbee.
Ms Sonmez shared excerpts from the note in her tweets on Tuesday morning, but cited an internal report on the use of social media to question the Post’s adherence to its own policies.
“Are there different rules for different people here… It seems that even our own editors think so,” he wrote.
Ms Sonmez made headlines in early 2020 when the Post briefly suspended her for mentioning an alleged rape of NBA star Kobe Bryant, hours after she and her family were killed in a helicopter crash.
After exposing herself as a sexual assault survivor, she sued The Post for banning her from publishing sexual harassment stories, a lawsuit that was thrown out of court last month.
Tuesday’s tweets shared internal messages from Post editors confirming that he was banned from covering sexual misconduct.
The Washington Post declined to comment on Tuesday at a request for comment on Ms. Somnez’s ongoing tweets. But Chief Operating Officer Kris Coratti Kelly told the New York Post on Friday that the newspaper did not disregard Mr. Weigel’s tweet.
“The editors have made it clear to staff that the tweet should be condemned and demeaning language or such acts will not be tolerated,” he said.
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