Published January 13, 2025

Below are notes, plus emails, letters and company policies mentioned in today’s story about being a trans woman working for a company owned by The New York Times, The Athletic.

My letter to HR and managers in 2023

Date: Tue, Feb. 21, 2023

• Other than the days, 26 years apart, when my parents died, the scariest day of my life was when I came out as transgender. That was surpassed last year when I learned that The New York Times would be buying The Athletic. In terms of scope and reach, I can’t think of an entity that has done more damage to the trans community in the past several years than the Times.
• That day last year was surpassed last week by my seeing the response by The New York Times to legitimate concerns raised in a letter signed by many Times contributors and by others, and in another letter. Then, the next day, I had a new scariest day when the Times followed that by publishing “In Defense of J.K. Rowling,” which seemed in context to be a clear signal to the trans community. Even if the timing of the latter was mere coincidence and not a direct response to criticism, some decent human being in a position of power at the Times should have put that opinion piece on hold to avoid the appearance of giving an editorial middle finger to people like me. That no one stopped it was chilling to our community, but not a surprise.
• The aftermath of all of the above finds me terrified, feeling alone and trying to navigate an existence that is all but unbearable.
• I don’t feel safe or welcome in the Times family, and you need to know that.
• The Times’ response, whether intentional or not, showed disrespect to trans journalists by conflating us with “activists.” Trans journalists understand this subject matter better than anyone else, and being dismissed as “activists” is a condescending rebuke that does its own harm on a number of levels.
• The Times’ history of LGBTQ coverage is problematic, which is well-documented and being explored again in light of these newest missteps.
• A part of me died last year when a member of management at The Athletic told me, during a company meeting on Zoom, that I could not publicly speak out about efforts to take my rights away as a member of a marginalized group. Under the guise of journalistic objectivity, this was inarguably the choosing of sides by the company in the wake of the acquisition by the Times.
• Following that meeting, one person in the entire company reached out to me to see if I was OK. One.
• I have never felt more alone, more isolated, than I do now, and the power imbalance in all of this, given the consequences to the trans community amid efforts to take away our health care and force us out of existence, is breathtaking in its own right.
• The Times has been complicit in these efforts to do us harm, and trans journalists take offense at any suggestion to the contrary.
• I don’t need to hear a lecture from anyone about how journalism works. This is my 40th year as a professional.
• I don’t want or need anyone from the Times to reach out to me.
• I don’t want anyone from The Athletic to reach out to me about any of this. If I want to discuss it further with someone, I will contact them.
• I am not quitting. I just want to put my head down and continue doing a good job. The best case for me is that no one from the Times discovers I exist.
• But it is difficult for me to envision The Athletic/The New York Times being a safe place for me in the long term.
• Please don’t call me or send me an email, message or text about this. I won’t respond.
• If you find it hard to sit in uncomfortable silence about all of this, you will be closer to understanding what it has been like for me for more than a year and what my immediate future looks like.

Thank you.

Carly

Letter to The Athletic’s employees from publisher David Perpich

Date: Wed, Oct 30, 2024
Subject: Supporting Our Newsroom This Election

Hey all,

AG Sulzberger sent an email to the Times’ staff yesterday that highlighted the incredible work of journalists in The Times’s newsroom during this election season — and the ways that other employees at The New York Times Company can support them.

I’m sharing his note with you below, along with a reminder for everyone in the newsroom to review our own editorial guidelines, particularly around political expression. You can read them under the “Political Opinions and Participation in Public Life” section. As AG pointed out, even personal messages shared by employees outside the newsroom can reflect back on our journalism, so please exercise your best judgment — especially in the coming weeks.

Thank you for your tireless work during this exceptionally busy season.

David

Letter from NYT publisher AG Sulzberger to Times employees

By AG Sulzberger
Date: Tue, Oct 29, 2024

Colleagues,

With Election Day just a week away, I want to take a moment to recognize the extraordinary work our journalists have been doing to provide the public with the information it needs to understand and engage with the election.

And I want to use this opportunity to remind all of us what we can do to support our newsroom colleagues as they continue to do the hard work of providing the best, most comprehensive coverage of the candidates, the issues, the concerns of voters and the state of the race.

In each of those four pillars of election coverage, our colleagues have done exemplary work.

• We’ve dug deeply into the issues, ensuring our readers are fully informed. We examined both candidate’s proposals and records on issues like the economy, climate, crime, abortion, immigration, international affairs and use of executive power. Our groundbreaking series on Trump’s second-term plans brought public attention to Project 2025. The Morning and “The Daily” have been producing sophisticated and digestible deep dives to help the public understand a variety of major issues.
• We’ve investigated the candidates themselves, providing essential insight into their views, records and actions. When the race began, we were reporting on a rematch between two candidates well known to American voters. But we never stopped digging into both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, giving our readers a deeper understanding of both. No news organization has done more to bring the truth to light about President Trump’s relationships, businesses, finances, legal struggles, personal conduct, public rhetoric and attacks on elections or the rule of law. At the same time, we also stood out as one of the few news organizations to continually report on Biden’s age and fitness, a question of importance to the public. Since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race, we’ve reported deeply on her record, history, relationships and motivations. We’ve also reported deeply on what the candidates’ vice presidential picks say about their visions for America.
• We’ve illuminated the lives and concerns of the nation’s voters, reflecting the hopes and fears of people in a country that is struggling to understand itself. Our reporters have been on the ground listening to people across the country, from cities to suburbs to rural communities and from the Northeast to the Southwest and throughout the rest of the country. In the process, they’ve explored how candidates and issues have resonated among diverse groups. And they’ve examined how the public has grown even more divided, more fearful of each other, more credulous of conspiracy theories and more tolerant of political violence.
• We’ve explored the shifting dynamics of the race itself. We analyzed how money, endorsements and campaign strategies are shaping the race and how the candidates and their messages are resonating with voters. We’ve shown how that plays out at the ballot box, presenting primary election results in every single state. Our polling operation, which has an unrivaled record over the last two cycles, continues to stand out for its embrace of complexity and nuance. We charted possible pathways to winning the presidency, tracked early voting and prepared for potentially slow and complex results. And our coverage of efforts to undermine and safeguard the integrity of the election has been the subject of particularly intense focus.
With this unmatched sweep of coverage, The New York Times serves as an irreplaceable guide to the election, helping voters find all the information, insight and context they need to cast their ballots with confidence, discern truth from misinformation and navigate whatever comes next. So I hope you’re as proud of this work as I am. And I hope you feel a responsibility, as I do, to support the colleagues behind it.

This brings me to my ask of all of you. If you’re in the newsroom, I’d like to remind you that our longstanding ethics guidelines prohibit the expression of personal political views in public. While the rest of our colleagues have no such prohibition, we’ve seen a number of instances in which the words or actions of our colleagues outside the newsroom were used to attack the work of our journalists or cast doubt on the credibility of The New York Times itself.

So for those of you not in the newsroom, please use your good judgment and exercise particular care in making predictions, amplifying an unconfirmed report or using intemperate language about a candidate or result. Remember your colleagues are working incredibly hard, often in the face of ongoing attempts to attack their credibility, to provide the public with important information in a way that meets our standards of fairness, accuracy and independence. Remember that you may be viewed as representing The Times, regardless of whether your job brings you in close contact with our journalism. Even something as seemingly mundane as liking a sharply worded political post on social media is often weaponized by those seeking to undermine our reporting. One question that may be helpful to ask yourself: Would I be comfortable with my name or the name of The Times being attached to this statement on Fox News or MSNBC?

This is the 44th presidential election that The New York Times has covered in the last 173 years. Elections bring our mission into distinct focus, especially as democracies are in retreat all over the world. This coverage is an essential public service and connects us to a proud tradition, even as the work I just named — just a sliver of the brilliant journalism we’ve produced — is distinctly a product of the modern New York Times. It would not be possible without the efforts of those across the company.

Along with our readers, I am deeply grateful.

AG

The Athletic editorial guidelines: Political Opinions and Participation in Public Life

As of Aug. 26, 2024

Athletic journalists can take part in religious, charitable and local or community affairs, and vote in elections. Our newsroom’s ethics policies are not intended to limit those rights.

But you should always take care to ensure that your involvement does not raise questions about The Athletic’s reputation, integrity or journalistic independence. That is especially the case when it comes to political or other topics that are in the news, including international affairs.

Journalists have no place on the playing field of politics, which increasingly intersects with the sports world. Staff members must not do anything that would risk damaging their professional neutrality or The Athletic’s.

In particular, Athletic staff members should not express political opinions on social media or any other platform. Staff members may not give money to, or raise money for, political candidates.

Staff members may not march or rally in support of public causes or movements, sign ads or letters taking a position on public issues, or lend their name to campaigns, benefit dinners or similar events if doing so might reasonably raise doubts about their or The Athletic’s ability to cover the news impartially.

Staff members can contribute to and volunteer for religious or charitable causes, although if a particular cause becomes newsworthy for The Athletic, that staff member may be forbidden from covering it.

These guidelines are intended to protect the core of our mission as journalists. Though The Athletic will consider matters case by case, we will be exceedingly cautious about permitting exceptions.

If you have questions about whether you can take part in a particular activity, please consult the Standards department.

Worth noting

After buying The Athletic three years ago, The New York Times expressly forbid us from saying we work for The New York Times, from identifying ourselves as Times editors or Times reporters. Not that I would ever do that, but consider all of what’s now true that wasn’t before. I put together a version of this list last year:

• Our paychecks say NYT on them.
• Their payroll department pays us.
• They administer our benefits.
• They switched who administers our 401(k) accounts (a company that still can’t get my name right more than a year later).
• They switched how we order and pay for prescriptions (a change that has caused many problems).
• They switched our health insurance provider (to UnitedHealthcare, its own nightmare).
• They and people who left the Times to work in management positions at The Athletic have rewritten our employee handbook and policies to more closely match theirs.
• Our stories show up on Google searches as The New York Times and www.nytimes.com.
• Our stories all have URLs that begin with nytimes.com.
• We use their Workday system.
• We are eligible for NYT employee discounts.
• The first page of chain of command in Workday lists NYT people only. My direct bosses are on the second page.
• We can use their office if we’re in New York.
• We must work on NYT laptops.
• We use their IT people.
• We must undergo all NYT security and employee training.
• Their unionized Sports department no longer exists in their unionized newsroom after they acquired the non-union Athletic (which put us in the position of being forced to replace union workers unless we had the luxury of being able to quit our jobs in protest).

What hasn’t changed?
• The Athletic remains a non-union workplace (for now).
• We can’t say we work for The New York Times. From the beginning, I’ve assumed that they mostly wanted that line drawn so we couldn’t join their union. But speaking of that, this is a new development that happened while I was putting the finishing touches on today’s stories That news broke Jan. 6. This followed soon after.

And this.

The response by Times management was predictable. So much so that the Guild statement was probably ready to go, with XXX still in the date at the top upon its release.

♥

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First embedded photo of New York Times Building by Matthew Nichols1 via Shutterstock.

Second embedded photo of New York Times Building by Tada Images via Shutterstock.