Donald G. McNeil Jr., a science and public health reporter for The New York Times who resigned under pressure last month after 45 years in the newspaper, published a report on Monday describing the circumstances of his departure in a four-part essay parts that used to criticize the Times leadership.
A leading reporter on the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. McNeil announced his departure last month following an article in The Daily Beast about his comments and behavior during a Times sponsored trip to high school students to Peru in 2019. Several students and their parents complained that Mr. McNeil, who served as an expert guide on the trip, had used racial slander and made other insensitive comments.
Shortly after his return, The Times investigated the matter and disciplined him, saying he had shown little judgment in using slander in a conversation about racist language. The Times’ investigation into McNeil’s behavior on the trip did not become public until the Daily Beast published a story about it.
After the publication of the Daily Beast article, a group of Times employees sent a letter to Times leaders, asking how the newspaper handled McNeil. On February 5, Dean Baquet, the executive editor, and Joe Kahn, the editor-in-chief, announced their departure in a memo to the team. As part of the announcement, Mr. McNeil apologized and said in a statement: “I originally thought that the context in which I used that ugly word could be defended. Now I realize that I can’t. It is deeply offensive and painful. “
In his four-part essay, published on the Medium online platform of more than 20,000 words, he wrote that his attempts to discuss serious issues with students have sometimes failed. He again acknowledged having used slander, saying that its use had occurred during a conversation with a participant on the trip about a student who had been suspended from a high school after a video two years earlier appeared showing the student using the slander.
“Am I a racist?” Mr. McNeil wrote. “I don’t think so – after working in 60 countries over 25 years, I think I am very good at judging people as individuals. But ‘am I a racist?’ in fact, it is a more difficult question to answer about you than some hypocritical people think. “
He denied the claim that he had rejected the existence of the white privilege in a conversation with the students. And he criticized an internal Times lawsuit that culminated, he said, with Baquet’s suggestion that he resign after “losing his wording.”
“We support Donald’s right to have his say,” The Times said in a statement.
Mr. McNeil also writes more generally about his decades in the newspaper and describes his active role in the NewsGuild union, adding that he considered it unfair that some Times leaders who were considering his case were on the opposite side during labor negotiations in recent years.
His departure from The Times led to a broader debate, with some people inside and outside the company saying that he suggested that the newspaper had an inhospitable climate for debate, and others arguing that McNeil should not have been allowed to continue in his role.
Mr. McNeil published his account on his first day as a former Times employee. The trial was examined by two lawyers, he said.
“What happened to me was called a ‘witch hunt’,” he wrote. “It is not. It is a series of misunderstandings and gross mistakes. I may be the only living reporter for the Times who actually covered a witch hunt – in Zimbabwe in 1997. They inevitably end up worse for the accused. I am at least getting my opinion. “