Nikole Hannah-Jones, the founder of The New York Times' "1619 Project," was reportedly "livid" after the newspaper published an opinion piece that heavily criticized her work, according to The Washington Post.
The Times published the article, in which columnist Bret Stephens ripped the project by saying it "has failed," last week, around the same time that the National Association of Scholars called on the Pulitzer Prize Board to revoke her prize.
The Washington Post reports that Hannah-Jones "was livid" despite support from the Times' acting opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury.
"On the day the NAS called for the revocation of her Pulitzer, she tweeted that efforts to discredit her work 'put me in a long tradition of [Black women] who failed to know their places.' She changed her Twitter bio to 'slanderous and nasty-minded mulattress' — a tribute to the trailblazing journalist Ida B. Wells, whom the Times slurred with those same words in 1894."
On Tuesday, the Times' executive editor Dean Baquet put out a statement supporting Hannah-Jones and the 1619 Project.
He notes that Stephens' column "raised questions about the journalistic ethics and standards of 1619 and the work of Nikole Hannah-Jones, who inspired and drove the project. That criticism I firmly reject. The project fell fully within our standards as a news organization. In fact, 1619 — and especially the work of Nikole — fills me with pride. Our readers, and I believe our country, have benefited immensely from the principled, rigorous and groundbreaking journalism of Nikole and the full team of writers and editors who brought us this transformative work."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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