Editor out following Ghomeshi’s essay
Magazine published fired CBC host’s ‘Reflections from a Hashtag’
The editor of the New York Review of Books is out at the magazine days after the publication published a controversial essay by former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi.
A spokesperson at the review, who would not give her name, confirmed Wednesday afternoon Ian Buruma is no longer editor. It was not immediately clear whether he had been fired or had resigned.
She declined to answer further questions about when he left or if his departure was related to the Ghomeshi piece. She referred the Star to the magazine’s publicist, Nicholas During, who also confirmed the move.
Buruma did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The publication drew sharp criticism for publishing Ghomeshi’s essay, titled “Reflections from a Hashtag,” in which Ghomeshi stopped short of admitting any physical abuse and did not explicitly apologize.
Billed as “Jian Ghomeshi on Jian Ghomeshi,” under the header “The Fall of Men” as part of a package of stories on the magazine’s Oct. 11 cover, many saw the piece as an unfair platform for the disgraced radio host.
“There are lots of guys more hated than me now. But I was the guy everyone hated first,” Ghomeshi writes in the piece, which was posted last Friday. He added that a female friend had quipped to him he “should get some kind of public recogni- tion as a #MeToo pioneer.”
The former CBC radio host was acquitted of sexually assaulting three womenin March 2016, following a high-profile criminal trial.
A lengthy Star investigation eventually outlined allegations from 15 women. The New York Review of Books took a public flogging for giving so much space to Ghomeshi, both from Toronto, where his trial set off a firestorm of #MeToo conversations years before the hashtag became a battle cry of the movement, and in the U.S.
New York-based writer Moira Donegan told the Star when the essay came out that she saw it and a recent Harper’s Magazine piece by John Hockenberry, another broadcaster accused of sexual misconduct, as a sign of “editors’ apparent eagerness to undermine the Me Too movement.” The two pieces reflect “a broader problem with a lack of diversity in editorial leadership at legacy magazines — where publishers and editors in chief are still largely white and male,” she said.
Feminist writer Roxane Gay tweeted that the decision to publish Ghomeshi’s essay was “truly baffling.” Lenore Lukasik-Foss, chair of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres, called the former host’s tone “dismissive” and said publishing the piece “starts to normalize” the voices of accusers.
Buruma drew further criticism for his responses about the essay in a combative inter- view with Slate.com. He told Slate he felt #MeToo can have “undesirable consequences.”
“I think, in a general climate of denunciation, sometimes things happen and people express views that can be disturbing. I wouldn’t say that I have an unequivocal view of it,” Buruma said.
“I think nobody has quite figured out what should happen in cases like his.”
Buruma, an award-winning journalist and author in his 60s, was announced as editor of the New York Review of Books in May 2017 after the death of the magazine’s previous editor. According to a New York Times article on him, the Dutch-born writer has been a contributor to the magazine since 1985, but had little editing experience when he took the reins.
He told the New York Times he wanted the magazine to feature more ideologically unpredictable views.
“We’re not living in the same time as Nixon or Clinton or Bush,” he said. “Under Trump, the distinctions that used to exist, roughly speaking, between left and right, have become much more fluid.”
CBC fired Ghomeshi from his hosting role on the arts and entertainment program Q in fall 2014 after executives saw a video showing bruising on a woman who had dated him. Ghomeshi responded in a Facebook message insisting everything had been consensual.
In May 2016, a further charge of sexual assault against him was withdrawn after Ghomeshi apologized to former CBC colleague Kathryn Borel for “sexually inappropriate behaviour” in the office, and signed a peace bond.
“We’re not living in the same time as Nixon or Clinton or Bush. Under Trump, the distinctions that used to exist, roughly speaking, between left and right, have become much more fluid.” IAN BURUMA FORMER NYRB EDITOR