Odd Omission in N.Y. Times Article About Resignation of Scientific American Editor-in-Chief

The Times reported yesterday, under the headline “Editor Resigns After Calling Some Trump Supporters ‘Fascists’”:

On election night, Laura Helmuth, who served as editor in chief of the publication for more than four years, posted a series of expletive-laden comments on Bluesky, a social platform.

In one comment, she apologized to younger voters for Generation X being full of “fascists.” In another, she wrote, “Solidarity to everybody whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high-school classmates are celebrating early results,” according to screenshots of the posts.

The posts, which have since been deleted, drew outrage from Trump supporters across social media. Many, including Elon Musk, accused her of failing to act as an impartial journalist and instead engaging in political activism. Some demanded her resignation….

Ms. Helmuth had previously apologized for her posts, which she said were “offensive and inappropriate.” She attributed her comments to “shock and confusion about the election results” and said that they did not reflect the position of Scientific American or her colleagues.

Kimberly Lau, the president of Scientific American, said in a statement that Ms. Helmuth had “decided to move on from her position” and thanked her for her time at the magazine….

Now of course different people can have different views about whether editors or others should resign for offensive public statements (or be fired, though there’s no evidence whether that happened here). More broadly, people can have different views about what this incident tells us about modern American culture.

But I would think that the story should have mentioned an important detail: Helmuth hadn’t just called Trump supporters fascists, but “fucking fascists,” and also wrote “fuck them to the moon and back”; as the Guardian (Maya Yang) reported, the posts were:

“Every four years I remember why I left Indiana (where I grew up) and remember why I respect the people who stayed and are trying to make it less racist and sexist. The moral arc of the universe isn’t going to bend itself.”

“Solidarity to everybody whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high-school classmates are celebrating early results because fuck them to the moon and back.”

“I apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of fucking fascists.”

It seems to me that many readers might have perceived a difference between an editor-in-chief’s resigning (perhaps under pressure) simply “after calling some Trump supporters ‘fascists’” and the editor-in-chief’s resigning after using vulgarities this way. Vulgar insults might been reasonably seen as signaling an extra level of rage, contempt, and intemperateness that might reflect on an editor-in-chief’s judgment in a way that merely calling people “fascist” might not. Yet, unless I’m missing something, the Times story never even mentions that the posts were vulgar or profane (and certainly doesn’t quote the posts, even in an expurgated way).

Of course, some readers might not care about this detail in evaluating the matter. Some might think that the editor’s publicly calling Trump voters “fucking fascists” is just as proper as simply calling then “fascists.” Others might think that either is equally improper, in an editor-in-chief who should be trying to project a levelheaded, thoughtful temperament, or at least avoid insulting prospective subscribers. (Presumably at least some potential readers of Scientific American might be among the 50% of American voters who voted for Trump.) But in any event, it seems to me that the Times should have given readers the information needed to make up their minds on this for themselves.

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