Washington Post Sacks Woke Reporter Who Stirred Up Workplace Drama Over a Joke – Opinion

I don’t normally write about stories like this, but when the schadenfreude is this alluring, I simply cannot pass up the opportunity. After all, I’m a conservative commentator. Democracy dies in darkness, the former Washington Post columnist Felicia Sonmez’s career just died in wokeness.

EXCLUSIVE : The @washingtonpostThe national political reporter has been fired @feliciasonmez, capping a week of fighting that stoked conversations over newsroom inequity and social media use and pitted reporters against each other.https://t.co/HhEFypSBlt

— Corbin Bolies (@CorbinBolies) June 9, 2022

You might remember Sonmez from such hits as “Let’s Bring Up Kobe Bryant’s Rape Charges Right After He Dies in a Helicopter Crash.”It was she who stirred up controversy at the Washington PostAfter she brought up the issue about one of her coworkers retweeting an innocent joke about women, The drama arose when political reporter Dave Weigel retweeted a post which read: “Each girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.”

Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.

— Cam Harless (@hamcarless) June 2, 2022

Sonmez used this opportunity to address her coworker instead of approaching him like an adult. She tweeted a screenshot of the joke showing Weigel had retweeted it: “Amazing to work in a newsroom that permits retweets such as this!”

Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed! pic.twitter.com/zs4dX4qprH

— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) June 3, 2022

Weigel then broke the first rule of cancel culture dealings and apologized for it to the mob. Sonmez and all of the others who were offended by the joke accepted his apology, forgave Weigel, and chose to move on like mature adults since he clearly didn’t mean any harm.

Just kidding.

You don’t even need to read about the story to know what happened next, right?

The Post suspended Weigel on Monday without paying him.

What followed was a delicious bout of infighting at one of the most well-known activist media outlets in America’s history. Reporter Jose Del Real criticized Sonmez for her overreaction to Weigel’s retweet. “Felicia, we all mess up from time to time. Repetitive and targeted harassment against a coworker isn’t a great look. You turn the language of inclusion into clout seeking and bullying. I don’t think this is appropriate,” he wrote in a now-deleted tweet responding to Sonmez, who shot back, “[o]bjecting to sexism is not ‘clout chasing.’ It’s not ‘harassment.’ And it’s certainly not ‘cruelty.’”

Sally Buzbee (executive editor) also got involved in the chaos by sending a memo encouraging employees to show kindness to each other. “We expect the staff to treat each other with respect and kindness both in the newsroom and online,” she wrote in a document obtained by the Daily Beast. “We are a collegial and creative newsroom doing an astonishing amount of important and groundbreaking journalism.”

But that didn’t stop the fighting. Many other WaPo workers rallied around to support their employer. Some took shots at Sonmez who had also lost the discrimination case she brought against them. She later struck back, pointing out that the reporters taking issue with her “are all white” and “among the highest-paid employees in the newsroom, making double and even triple what some other National desk reporters are making, particularly journalists of color.”

Others brought up another example of Sonmez causing trouble at the WaPo’s workplace. In a tweet, CNN media activist Oliver Darcy brought up an email Sonmez wrote in response to a memo that had gone out urging employees to “take time to assess how you are doing,” and to “seek help if you need to talk to someone” in the aftermath of the white supremacist terrorist attack in Buffalo, New York, and the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Sonmez responded last Thursday by hitting “reply all” and sending an email obtained by Vanity Fair which read “Just a reminder that I was punished after I told an editor that I had to take a walk around the block after reading a difficult story.”

This is what it looks like Washington Post has said “bye Felicia” and is moving on from the affair. It’s amazing, given her background, that she tolerated her antics so long. Nevertheless, this was the last straw and Sonmez will have to find a new job – but probably not before she maligns the company as racist, sexist, and other ways to say “bigoted.” It appears that even WaPo has a limit for how much wokeness it is willing to put up with.