Well, this has definitely been an illuminating period for journalism and the New York Times.

It has finally been revealed what will get you fired from The Old Gray Lady.

It’s not smearing a sitting Supreme Court Justice.

It’s not sleeping with your source. (You only get “reassigned” for that.)

It’s not publishing anti-Semitic cartoons.

It’s not even old racist Tweets.

What do you have to do to get fired from the New York Times? Tell people to cancel their subscriptions.

Enter Sarah Jeong, who our readers will remember from her Twitter screeds against white people.

Jeong’s comments were no hinderance to her employment by the NYT back in the summer of 2018. But she was among those legitimately upset that the New York Times was publishing identifying details about the person who wrote the whistleblower report. So what did Jeong tell people to do on Twitter?

You’re wrong. NYT does pay attention to subscriber cancellations. It’s one of the metrics for “outrage” that they take to distinguish between “real” outrage and superficial outrage. What subscribers say can back up dissenting views inside the paper about what it should do and be.

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) September 27, 2019

That’s what you’re telling people to do? Cancel their subscriptions? Does Jeong realize how the paper makes money?

Incredible. NYT editor egging on subscription cancellations so some faction in-house can say "see I told you so" https://t.co/zJrQUq8NOc

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) September 27, 2019

That bold strategy… doesn’t seem to have paid off.

Sarah Jeong is no longer part of The New York Times’ editorial board, an editor with the newspaper told CNN on Friday, with the writer maintaining that a tweet she sent this week was not a call for people to “unsubscribe” from the paper.”

“Sarah decided to leave the editorial board in August,” deputy editorial board member Kate Kingsbury told CNN on Friday. “But we’re glad to still have her journalism and insights around technology in our pages through her work as a contributor.”

Jeong is now serving as a “contracted contributor for NYT Opinion,” CNN reported. The Times did not announce Jeong’s departure from its editorial board at the time in August.”

Uh huh sure. How convenient that her “departure” wasn’t announced until late September when she left the editorial board in August. Also, I have some lovely beachfront property in Death Valley that you might be interested in.

So, what have we learned from this, everyone?

So basically we learned the only accountability journalists have is “never go against the family.” https://t.co/zgvRnkdrJP

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) September 28, 2019

The only way a journalist will lose their job these days is not for lack of ethics, or racism, or skirting dangerously close to or actually publishing libelous claims. It’s when you actually threaten the paper’s bottom line. You have seen cancel culture come for the head of Aaron Calvin of the Des Moines Register – not because he dug up irrelevant eight-year-old tweets from Carson King (who turned a small stunt into a huge donation to charity), but because people were sufficiently outraged to start canceling their subscriptions. (Of course, Calvin is now complaining that it’s SO TERRIBLY UNFAIR that mutually assured destruction came knocking on his door, surprise surprise.) The dinosaur media – especially printed newspapers – is in an extremely precarious position between social justice wokeness and the bottom dollar. Jeong isn’t wrong in saying that the bottom dollar will win out. The problem for the New York Times is that she said the quiet part out loud.

Featured image via Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license