Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP/Shutterstock Last week, when Sue Schafer learned that the Washington Post planned to publish a story about one of the dumbest things she had ever done, she had the same question that many readers would have about the resulting 3,000-word article, “Blackface Incident at Post Cartoonist’s 2018 Halloween Party Resurfaces Amid Protests”: Why is this newsworthy?
This is a mortifying tale about one woman’s cluelessness, but why did it end up in a major national newspaper? The Post’s editorial standards declare that “fairness includes relevance.” The non-recent, non-criminal bad acts of non-public figures are not ordinarily considered news, and before June 17, Schafer was a graphic designer with no public profile and no apparent power or ambitions to obtain it.
And if the supposed journalistic purpose of the article was to interrogate the actions of employees of the Post, it failed in a few ways. “My reaction, like everybody, was, What the hell? Why is this a story?” a feature writer at the Post told New York. “My second reaction was, Why is this a 3,000-word feature?” The feature writer added, “This was not drawn up by the ‘Style’ section.”
On June 14, Gruber sent Sullivan a message that “suggested the person wearing blackface might be a producer at the Post,” Sullivan told New York. Sullivan forwarded the message to a couple of features-department editors, she said, “and pretty much lost track of it after that until it published.” But it didn’t take long for Post reporters to establish that it was not one of their colleagues who had worn blackface — Fisher was on the phone with Schafer by June 15.
A third person interviewed by Fisher recounted a similar exchange. “He told me that from a personal perspective, he didn’t think this story necessarily warranted being out there, and that was his personal opinion,” this person said. “He chalked it up to other senior editors at the Post saying it has to go, and he claimed it was out of his hands even though he wrote it.
Olivianuzzi jbarro Thank you for writing this article. I personally know none of the players here but am outraged by the WaPo article and the two vindictive women, Gruber and Prince. How did this really happen?
jbarro Olivianuzzi Jeff Bezos' Washington Post, Jack Dorsey's Twitter, Google & every corporate monopoly is using BLM as a front to launder money to the DNC Do the research, billionaires in bed with unelected gov officials & establishment politicians need tax revenue to fund their pyramid schemes
jbarro Olivianuzzi What a dark time to be alive in America.
Cernovich jbarro Olivianuzzi Retweet Biggest news story since Pearl Harbor Outgoing President Obama and VP Biden colluded to overthrow the newly elected President of the United States.
jbarro Olivianuzzi I can’t with liberal culture, got a headache, gag reflex trying to read the piece and the comments. Sorry. It’s toxic. Don't hate me. Trump 2020.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Who is funding BlackLivesMatter?
jbarro Olivianuzzi A simple conversation about insensitivity over her choice of costume would've sufficed. If her actions were that objectionable to the host or other party goers it should've been addressed in 2018. To wait 2 years and have her fired comes across as vendictive.
Cernovich jbarro Olivianuzzi I just can't read the Washington Compost. TMZ is more accurate
jbarro Olivianuzzi Being offended by it is the only thing that makes it racist. Stop being offended by everything and racism will die.
jbarro Olivianuzzi No, no one really wants the outrage mob...
I don't really care tbh. Nobody spoke out against this when it mattered. I hope tons of people get fired. Just payment for being silent bitches.
Cernovich jbarro Olivianuzzi Let the left devour its own. It’s a beautiful thing to behold
Cernovich jbarro Olivianuzzi A lot of people fibbing in that article...
Olivianuzzi jbarro This is terrible. Shaming people and tracking them down. Have we become China? Last I checked this was America, but the way people are behaving we will be like China before too long.
jbarro Olivianuzzi From 2014. Just put it as my Facebook profile pic. I’m not kneeling for anybody
jbarro Olivianuzzi I was a washingtonpost subscriber for less a week before I had to cancel. That shit isn’t news, their commentary isn’t intelligent, and good lord their headlines made me feel as stupid reading them as they must have assumed i was when they wrote them. Canceled that shit ASAP.
jbarro Olivianuzzi I...don’t pity this woman. She was a part of the problem. She fell victim to her own paradigm.
jbarro Olivianuzzi WaPo should be deleted from the internet.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Anyone who isn’t a sociopath would be wracked with guilt if they ruined another persons life by accident. They are soulless.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Need to cancel the Washington post
jbarro Olivianuzzi Why do people think this sort of behavior from a newspaper is ok
jbarro Olivianuzzi Why does it have to be her cluelessness? She wore a funny constume and people didn’t get it so they shamed. This is the problem with not having free speech. Most people would have gotten the joke.
jbarro Olivianuzzi This is great. We fucked up but we know nothing
jbarro Olivianuzzi Black faces: Ralph Northam, Justin Trudeau, Jimmy Kimmel, Joy Behar, Howard Stern...and more... they got away with it when other conservative people being cancelled!
jbarro Olivianuzzi 'Our owner is looting humanity and the planet but let's destroy an already shamed and mortified graphic designer.' - Brave WaPo journalism mffisher TrentPost
jbarro Olivianuzzi Democracy Dies In Blackface
jbarro Olivianuzzi JeffBezos massive cringe
jbarro Olivianuzzi The Post was clearly bullied into publishing what amount me to a hit piece on a private citizen. And it’s unlikely the offended parties give a hoot in hell that they’ve derailed someone’s life because of their smug, self-righteous indignation.
jbarro Olivianuzzi 'That night, Schafer was repeatedly confronted abt the racially offensive costume … by several guests at the party, 1 of whom would tip the newspaper to her actions nearly 2 years later …' Find the tattle tale. Guarantee she was party to it for a professional advantage
jbarro Olivianuzzi Hey elonmusk when you buy Facebook can you buy WaPo too and shut it down as well?
jbarro Olivianuzzi Yes, every one of you on the left wanted this. You're just terrified that the backlash hit you so hard this time so you're trying to cover your complicity in this while running cover for the Washington Post.
jbarro Olivianuzzi You know what? They come for me like this then they better increase their on-premise security, because I'll be bringing the Imperial Guard to smash their presses and arrest them all.
jbarro Olivianuzzi I was a zombie minister. It's ok because I was an ordained minister part time so that part was not the costume. The zombie part was if you got confused on that. Is that deadest or something?
sanfran_972 jbarro Olivianuzzi Cancel culture strikes again.
jbarro Olivianuzzi It’s almost like they don’t understand journalistic ethics... 🙄
jbarro Olivianuzzi Yeah, when they start targeting regular people on mass the real crazies on both sides are going to come out and shit is gonna get really bad. Like psychotics with guns bad. I'm not looking forward to that. Everyone on both sides need to chill the fuck out
Olivianuzzi jbarro '[Lexie Gruber] said that she’d recently read So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by jonronson , a book about what happens to those who are dragged on the internet.' Yet she learned nothing from that brilliant and thought provoking tome.
jbarro Olivianuzzi A hit piece.. for what purpose?
jbarro Olivianuzzi It doesn't matter now. The only think that matters is how anti-white you are and apparently if you're white it can never be enough. Let this rotting corpse of a civilization die.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Obviously since it keeps happening
jbarro Olivianuzzi It's time to.end cancel culture. There is apparently no statute of limitations.
jbarro Olivianuzzi
jbarro Olivianuzzi Nobody wants any of this but the genie’s out of the bottle.
jbarro Olivianuzzi
jbarro Olivianuzzi Don't you think it would have been relevant to the story to mention that the owner of the Washington Post only days before publicly dragged a private citizen over racism? Where, O where did they ever get the idea that this would be ok?
jbarro Olivianuzzi I will take this case pro bono
jbarro Olivianuzzi Because they're tiny people with a power complex.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Hope she sues them!
jbarro Olivianuzzi Why? Because they could. To make themselves feel and look good. Because a mob asked them to. And, because they're committed to critical race theory, they threw a woman to the wolves. For shame, washingtonpost. You have no sense of decency.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Washington Post needs to learn what Black Face actually is. But I bet they know who the douchebags are. They have to live in that slush of a bag for the rest of their lives.
jbarro Olivianuzzi washingtonpost sucks every dick in town. The competition between the Wiper and nyt for Worst Published Paper is neck and neck.
jbarro Olivianuzzi
jbarro Olivianuzzi I find the washingtonpost OFFENSIVE and needs to be shamed!
jbarro Olivianuzzi Simon Boyi Chen's chilling anecdote from life during the Cultural Revolution is seeming less and less remote.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Do we need a Washington Post?
jbarro Olivianuzzi Because journalists are no longer journalists. They're activists meant to push agenda and enforce ideology.
jbarro Olivianuzzi i can't believe it has taken this long for progress
jbarro Olivianuzzi Enemy. Of. The. People.
jbarro Olivianuzzi Not surprised. They leave only one action left to take against them and it's not what they think it is.
jbarro Olivianuzzi These people are like a 3 yr old who has found his Dad's loaded gun.
Olivianuzzi jbarro Trent said, “I would refer you to our corporate response. I look forward to reading your story.” Translation: 'I was forced to write this story and even I hate it.'
jbarro Olivianuzzi Dana Milbanks’ honor needed defending.
Olivianuzzi jbarro 3,000 WORDS!
jbarro Olivianuzzi 'If this is a story with 'nuance and sensitivity' that the Post felt “impelled” to run, why is a spirited defense of the Post’s journalism coming only from a non-journalist spokesperson for the paper . . . paper’s staff generally does not consider the story to be defensible.'
jbarro Olivianuzzi Deserved disemboweling of washingtonpost for getting woman fired over 2- yr old blackface costume story. 'If the Post had simply followed its own published editorial guidance that 'fairness includes relevance,' it would have made the right decision and passed on this story.'
This is flat-out racial Stalinism. People are falling all over themselves to be the first to show correct behavior and shame someone else.
Which raises the question, for about the 3,000th time, about why WashingtonPost should even be respected in the first place.
These reporters are just insufferable a-holes who just wanted to destroy a private citizens life cause they thought it would be fun. I hope nothing but bad stuff happens to them.
Definitely did not want. That was such a ridiculous story, and I was confounded as to why it ran. Thanks for breaking it down.
If she is clueless that blackface even in jest could get her in trouble, she deserved to lose her job. She's not clueless. Her joke was bad and it bit her in the ass. Do not make her a victim. She made a choice and is paying the consequences of the choice
Wapo is Not a Respected Paper - it’s pure propaganda and would be useful for toilet paper.
I can tell you I would NOT have taken that dick Dana Milbank, showing up dressed as Kavanaugh well. I would have kicked his ass out right next to hers. And no, I don't think this needed to be published now.
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