The Atlantic magazine fired well-known conservative writer Kevin Williamson just two weeks after hiring him, apparently over his views related to abortion and the death penalty.
In a company-wide memo on Thursday, Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg said “information came to our attention” the previous day “that has caused us to reconsider this relationship” with Williamson.
“Specifically, the subject of one of Kevin’s most controversial tweets was also a centerpiece of a podcast discussion in which Kevin explained his views on the subject of the death penalty and abortion,” Goldberg said in the memo, reported by the Huffington Post. “The language he used in this podcast — and in my conversations with him in recent days — made it clear that the original tweet did, in fact, represent his carefully considered views. The tweet was not merely an impulsive, decontextualized, heat-of-the-moment post, as Kevin had explained it. Furthermore, the language used in the podcast was callous and violent. This runs contrary to The Atlantic’s tradition of respectful, well-reasoned debate, and to the values of our workplace.”
Liberal journalists criticized the Atlantic for its original decision to hire Williamson, who is known for writing aggressively on controversial topics, most recently for National Review. Many of his critics pointed to tweets he wrote in 2014 wherein he said the death penalty would be appropriate for women who have abortions and suggested they might be “hanged.”
“Kevin is a gifted writer, and he has been nothing but professional in all of our interactions,” Goldberg wrote in the memo. “But I have come to the conclusion that The Atlantic is not the best fit for his talents, and so we are parting ways.”
