Employees of The New York Times took a quiz revealing how they felt about potentially offensive words.
Former investigative reporter and congressional candidate Matthew Foldi shared a lengthy thread showing the responses of the employees.
“Going to do a thread on some WILD admissions by New York Times staff that show how wildly out of touch they are with America, biology, and basically the entire world,” Foldi tweeted.
He added, “Starting off with how they admit they want to erase pregnant women.”
The screenshot shows Times Opinion Graphics Editor Quoctrung Bui recalling the debate over the use of the term “pregnant people.”
He explained, “On the one hand, we wanted to be more inclusive of trans men who can get pregnant, but we also didn’t want to erase women, given the vast majority of abortions are had by women and how important this issue was for women historically.”
In another screenshot, Times Opinion contributing editor Jessica Bennett shared the moment she corrected herself on a podcast after using the word “pro-life.”
She changed it to “anti-abortion.”
Here, one of their editors admits she won’t use the term “pro-life”…because that’s not the preferred term of the left, which is obviously their entire readership
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) December 28, 2022
(2/x) pic.twitter.com/GptaWwDWkO
Bennett continued, “It can be hard to keep up, even when it is, well, literally your job to keep up. And who makes the rules anyway?”
John McWhorter, Times Opinion writer, appeared to acknowledge the term “master bedroom” had nothing to do with slavery.
“It did not originate as the term for where slaves’ masters slept, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a discussion as to whether using it now can be taken to suggest that anyway,” McWhorter said.
Here, they discuss the term “master bedroom,” and admit the term has nothing to do with slavery, but that they understand why people would be triggered and want to stop using it anyway
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) December 28, 2022
(3/x) pic.twitter.com/YT1iFG7Cdw
Foldi pointed out in another tweet that a Times editor “acknowledges that fake women term Latinx is not used by anyone—and that Latinos are the least surprised by this reality.”
Here the NYT editor acknowledges that fake women term Latinx is not used by anyone—and that Latinos are the least surprised by this reality
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) December 28, 2022
(8/x) pic.twitter.com/1NS8g7i2W7
Fox News noted the quiz is found in the Times’ online opinion section, and titled, “You Can’t Say That! (Or Can You?).”
The reporting comes just over a week after Stanford University published a list of “harmful language,” as IJR reported.