The Wall Street Journal reassigned a top editor to its opinion team after journalists sent a letter to the newsroom accusing him of violating rules of the news side of the business.
Gerard Baker, who has been an editor at large for the paper since stepping down as editor-in-chief in 2018, was moved to the opinion staff on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
The letter, which came from the board of the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, the union which represents Wall Street Journal employees, took issue with Baker’s use of Twitter and weekly opinion column.
It criticized a May 15 column headlined “The Often Distorted Reality of Hate Crime in America,” which focused on “one-sided” reported in stories related to race. It touched on the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who earlier this year was gunned down while he was jogging in a residential Georgia neighborhood. Three white men have been charged with murder.
The letter also singled out tweets the IAPE said was in violation of the paper’s social media policy and contained complaints about Baker’s opinion columns for the Times of London, noting that news-side staffers are not allowed to contribute opinion essays to other publications.
According to the report, Baker has a reputation for sending late-night emails to reporters and editors under him accusing them of adding commentary to their coverage of President Trump. Staff members rejected the criticism, arguing during a meeting that his coverage of Trump was too easygoing on the president.
More than a dozen journalists have left to go to rivals of the Wall Street Journal, including the Washington Post and the New York Times.
