New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush returned from a self-imposed Twitter exile with a vengeance Thursday, tweeting out his latest article before releasing pent-up Twitter fire.
The first tweet, a link to a recent story Ben Carson’s unfortunate $31,000 dining set, quickly racked up more than 2,000 retweets.
Ben Carson inquired about the price/legality of using HUD $$$ for official portraits. Staff told him it would cost $25k and would violate federal law. https://t.co/62luiArRlh
Thrush returned “to promote my stories and the great work of others on a new beat that ain’t typically Twitter candy,” he told TheWrap.
Last year, Thrush caused a minor stir when he officially swore off the platform, saying it was “too much of a distraction.” The New York Times reporter walked back his original plan to delete the account outright — Thrush has more than 340,000 followers — and elected to have it sit dormant.
His last tweet before yesterday was from Sept. 19, 2017.
Thrush’s decision came a time that would prove to be the last few months before he got caught up in the New York Times’ most visible #MeToo scandal.
In November, Vox Media published a lengthy piece accusing Thrush of multiple instances of misconduct while he was a reporter at Politico. After an internal investigation, the Times allowed Thrush to keep his job, but suspended him for two months and ordered him to a new beat covering “the social safety net in the age of Trump, particularly HUD and HHS”
Thrush is also an MSNBC contributor and one-time regular on “Morning Joe.” It remains to be seen whether he will ever join Joe and Mika back on set.
9 Times New York Times Editorial Made Everyone Freak Out
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts
MSNBC
David Brooks: 'Girl I Want Your Body'
New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks offered his spin on the MeToo movement in November. But his attempt to speak the language of sex and passion led him to write some lines like "girl I want your body" and "sex is a gold nugget" and the Internet went nuts.
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Bret Stephens' "A Defense, of Sorts, for Harvey Weinstein"
The October, 2017 piece was actually titled "Weinstein and Our Culture of Enablers," but Stephens couldn't resist throwing in the trollish alternative headline see above into a tweeted description of the article -- which promptly precipitated an Internet meltdown
YouTube
David Brooks Urges "Respect to Gun Owners" After Parkland, Florida Massacre
David Brooks set passions aflame after urging "respect" for gun owners after 17 children were killed at a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. "So if you want to stop school shootings it's not enough just to vent and march. It's necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points," he wrote.
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Quinn "Been Friends with Various Neo-Nazis" Norton
The New York Times got more than they bargained for when they hired tech writer Quinn Norton. Almost immediately after the news was announced old tweets began to emerge including where Norton said she had "been friends with various neo-nazis" and used the N word. The Times cut her loose just hours after she was hired.
YouTube
Bari Weiss Attacks Aziz Ansari Accuser: 'I'll Get Crushed for This'
Weiss risked more wrath on the set of "Morning Joe" in January after blasting a woman who accused comedian Aziz Ansari of sexual misconduct. "It's called bad sex," she told Joe and Mika. "I'll get crushed for saying this."
TheWrap
Bari Weiss Quotes Hamilton: 'Immigrants: We Get the Job Done"
Anti-Weiss Internet mobs were set ablaze after she tweeted out "Immigrants: we get the job done," in response to Olympian Mirai Nagasu's triple axel. Nagasu was born in California to immigrant parents and Twitter furiously dragged her for not paying sufficient deference to the decision.
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James Bennet Diversifies the Times Opinion Pages
Editorial Page Editor James Bennet has said his mission is to broaden editorial diversity on the Times newsroom. The initiative has often been rocky and the paper has been beset by online criticism of hiring choices, and targeted leaks by Times employees unhappy with his changes.
YouTube
David Brooks Sandwich-Shames Less Educated Friend
Perhaps most egregious of all in the mind of Internet warriors was Brooks' confession in a July, 2017 column that he once took a friend "with only a high school degree" into a gourmet sandwich shop but decided to pull a quick switch for Mexican food after, so he said, she appeared overwhelmed by words like Soppressata and Capicollo.
Creative Commons
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Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts