The far-left Daily Beast says it has “hit pause” on Joy Reid’s columns until its own reporters have had a chance to investigate her claim that homophobic writings attributed to her were actually written by a hacker.
In other fallout news, the embattled MSNBC anchor canceled a public appearance, a high-profile panel discussion she was set to appear on in New York.
On top of that, a gay rights group abruptly canceled an award Reid was scheduled to receive next month.
“We’re going to hit pause on Reid’s columns,” wrote Daily Beast executive editor Noah Shachtman in an internal email. “As you’re well aware, support for LGBTQ rights and respect for human dignity are core to Daily Beast. So we’re taking seriously the new allegations that one of our columnists, Joy Reid, previously wrote homophobic blog posts during her stint as a radio host.”
Shachtman added, “We’ve all said and done things in our lives that we wish we hadn’t done. We deserve the room to grow beyond our past. But these allegations are serious enough that they deserve a full examination.”
Hopefully, Schachtman is not talking about 12-year-old writings being a disqualifier. It would be outrageous to fire or suspend someone over something they wrote at a completely different site more than a decade ago. The only thing that should matter to the Daily Beast is if Reid follows its own editorial policies and guidelines.
Reid’s problem, however, is not what was published at her site in 2006. Reid’s problem is if she is lying in 2018, and by all accounts her story of being hacked is springing leaks right and left.
But even if she is caught lying, that might not be enough for her to lose her status in an establishment media that still parades Dan Rather and Brian Williams around as Pillars Of Virtuous Journalism. Reid is seen as intellectually pure, so any loophole that can be found to keep her around will be.
Already, despite her crumbling story and the open skepticism being expressed, even on the far-left, NBC News is standing by her.
Reid’s biggest problem right now is that she appears to be blocking any opportunity for an independent investigation.
According to the Washington Post, an anti-Trump publication every bit as determined to destroy the president as Reid, she and her handlers have added a code to her old site that is intentionally meant to stop it from being fully archived and therefore fully examined.
Moreover, Reid, who has already acknowledged writing homophobic posts and has apologized for them, has not yet detailed which one of these new discoveries from the 00’s she wrote and which she claims were written by hackers.
What we do know is that if Reid was in fact hacked, it happened prior to 2006, which means someone attempted frame a local radio host … but never sprung the trap. Or this alleged hacker had the foresight no one else did, was so certain Reid would become a national media figure the following decade, he planted the seeds of her destruction 12 years in advance. Or somewhere there is a hacker with a time machine.
Regardless of what ultimately happens, NBC News is already a haven for homophobes, rape deniers, alleged sex abusers, and their enablers. What is one more?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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