The New York Times on Tuesday hired and then fired a new member of its editorial board on the same day after controversial tweets by the writer resurfaced.
Tech writer Quinn Norton was announced by the paper of record as its new “lead opinion writer on the power, culture and consequences of technology” shortly before 3:00 p.m.
A Twitter backlash quickly ensued with old tweets that included what many deemed as racist and homophobic content by Norton being circulated across social media.
Norton, 45, says the tweets were taken out of context, but did admit she was “friends with various neo-nazis” despite having “never agreed with them.”
She also stated in a series of tweets that she “used a variation of offensive language to talk about question of tone.”
The Times at first appeared to be looking into Norton’s tweets, stating late Tuesday afternoon that it was “very concerned” about the backlash.
Shortly after 10 p.m., the Times said it was parting ways with Norton.
“Despite our review of Quinn Norton’s work and our conversations with her previous employers, this was new information to us. Based on it, we’ve decided to go our separate ways,” read a statement from Times editorial page director James Bennett.
Quinn said she would continue in journalism and has a “long list of story ideas” to share moving forward.
“One good thing from all this, I have a long list of story ideas I was collecting for the times, and I’m really looking forward to fleshing them out and getting them out into the world,” she tweeted.
Quinn has written for publications including The Guardian, Medium, Wired and Maximum PC.