Posted on October 1, 2019

Sarah Jeong Out at New York Times Editorial Board

Joe Concha, The Hill, September 28, 2019

Sarah Jeong is no longer part of The New York Times editorial board, an editor with the newspaper told CNN on Friday, with the writer maintaining that a tweet she sent this week was not a call for people to “unsubscribe” from the paper.

“Sarah decided to leave the editorial board in August,” deputy editorial page editor Kate Kingsbury told CNN on Friday. “But we’re glad to still have her journalism and insights around technology in our pages through her work as a contributor.”

Jeong is now serving as a “contracted contributor for NYT Opinion,” CNN reported. The Times did not announce Jeong’s departure from its editorial board in August.

The news regarding Jeong’s status came hours after she raised eyebrows on Twitter over her response to a columnist for The Guardian who urged against people canceling their subscription to the Times.

“You’re wrong. NYT does pay attention to subscriber cancellations,” replied Jeong. “It’s one of the metrics for ‘outrage’ that they take to distinguish between ‘real’ outrage and superficial outrage. What subscribers say can back up dissenting views inside the paper about what it should do and be.”

Jeong later told CNN that her tweet was not a “call to unsubscribe,” saying, “I’m just weary of having my name and my work invoked as a reason to not boycott.”

“A lot of people have done and continue to do great work at the Times. But if a reader has real, good-faith objections to certain editorial decisions, the fact that the paper has done great work doesn’t negate those objections,” she added.

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