The Washington Post Fires Felicia Sonmez Amid Week of Infighting

[AZProgressive]

The Washington Post has parted ways with national political reporter Felicia Sonmez, The Daily Beast has confirmed, capping off a week’s worth of highly public drama at the paper.

Sonmez’s apparent exit from the paper comes after a week of WaPo infighting that stoked heated conversations over newsroom inequity and social-media use, with multiple reporters taking shots at one another in public.

The seemingly unending dramatics began late last week when political reporter Dave Weigel retweeted a sexist post about bisexual women. He later apologized but not before Sonmez publicly called him out along with the paper’s management, writing: “Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!”

Fellow Post reporter Jose A. Del Real then publicly accused Sonmez of “repeated and targeted public harassment of a colleague,” which led to several tweets worth of beefing between the pair until Del Real blocked her. The ordeal prompted Executive Editor Sally Buzbee issuing a somewhat vague memo telling staffers to play nice. But tensions remained high on Monday as WaPo video technician Breanna Muir reportedly replied-all to the memo to cheer on Sonmez and call out a different colleague for referring to her in a tweet as “Breanna Taylor.” The paper has a “toxic work environment,” Muir wrote in her staff-wide note.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/felicia-sonmez-exits-washington-post-amid-week-of-infighting/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Equality for all

but the background remains. But with such a toxic environment, an organization must end the distraction because it has a job to do.

[Hortensis]

2. From what I've read, there was a sexist joke appropriate to call out professionally

at the WaPo, but Sonmez has been acting immoderately for some time, and many colleagues felt unprofessionally in attacking the Post on social media, to the point of creating the trouble that was dealt with by firing her.

In 2021 Sonmez sued the paper for sexual discrimination, and the suit was recently dismissed. That may have lead to her recent string of behaviors and this final break.

Those who want to view this as a noble Davida going up against a wealthy Goliath are free to do so. But I've seen enough of these situations to assume that I'd be among those colleagues texting her to change her tactics to ones more likely to succeed than end in her firing, or to back off altogether because I didn't agree with her.

[Hortensis]

3. From what I've read, there was a sexist joke appropriate to call out professionally

at the WaPo, but Ms. Sonmez has been acting immoderately for some time, and many of her colleagues felt unprofessionally in repeatedly criticizing the Post on social media, to the point creating the internal disruption that was dealt with by firing her.

In 2021 Sonmez sued the paper for sexual discrimination, and the suit was recently dismissed. That may have lead to her recent string of anti-Post behaviors and this final break.

I've seen enough of these situations personally to assume that I'd be among those colleagues texting her to change her tactics to ones more likely to succeed than to end with her removal, or, who knows, to back off altogether because I couldn't agree with her.

In any case, she'll now be independent and free to both attack the Post and work as a social warrior against sexists and inequity from outside. On top of whatever she might have achieved while there.