00:05:03.140The last time that you and I spoke, it was about resistant summer school.
00:05:06.740You know, the course on race and media that you developed after Columbia pretty shamelessly
00:05:10.800shamelessly caved to the Trump administration and canceled this super popular, well-liked class
00:05:16.020you've been teaching there. I kind of hate that this is a theme, but did that prepare you at all
00:05:21.500or set the stage for what ended up happening at the post? What's that shirt where some of,
00:05:26.220where it's like, oh, you study the culture. I am the culture. You know, I kind of feel a little
00:05:32.940bit of like oh you study cancel culture i am the cancel culture right now um yeah obviously you
00:05:43.200know two sides of of a coin um columbia obviously being a a place where i went to school at columbia
00:05:53.460i was a graduate student at the school of international and public affairs so it was
00:05:56.640always a dream to be able to give back to an extent in my capacity as both an alumna and a
00:06:03.700working journalist to give back to students there. So having that opportunity sort of taken
00:06:10.420away like that hurt. This one is deep with the Washington Post, the opinion section. This is my,
00:06:18.140this was the only major journalism job I've had, stayed there for 11 years.
00:06:24.900When I was hired to work in the opinion section, my job was to, well, not just write myself, I actually started as an editor, so to uplift other voices, especially, you know, voices I disagreed with.
00:06:44.020I did all sorts of ranges of things. And so it really, it really is, I'm still processing it. It hurts a lot. I was just doing my job. I was just, same thing, talking about race and power in America, which is what I was hired to do as a columnist.
00:07:10.360And to see this sort of 180 shift caught me off guard for sure.
00:08:31.280So being punished for being for doing what I was trained to do.
00:08:34.800Now, of course, I wasn't prepared for that.
00:08:36.940Let's talk about that because you have really spoken about how there is some misinformation really floating around online about what exactly happened.
00:08:44.020So set the record straight for us here.
00:08:45.960I read the letter that you posted from the post on your sub stack.1.00
00:08:59.300So in the actual letter that I got, I know there was a lot of sort of assumptions, rumors, circulations that, you know, when you say on the aftermath of the Kirk shooting, people were looking for, I only had one post where I mentioned Kirk directly by name.
00:09:17.500And it was a characterization of his views on Black women.
00:09:22.780There was a quote going around, I think, from The Nation that, you know, Kirk had said Black women lack processing power.
00:09:30.700It then got updated to, you know, he was talking specifically about Joy Reid and certain prominent Black women.
00:09:37.560But nevertheless, this is someone who has long characterized Black women, particularly professional Black women, interestingly, as not being deserving of the job.
00:09:48.600That was the only time I referenced Kurt.
00:09:49.800But what the post took issue with, and should I read it myself? Is that the better approach? I was accused of gross misconduct. Let's see. Let's pull the letter up right here.
00:10:12.400So, Karen is from the head of HR. I'm writing to inform you that the post is terminating your employment effective immediately for gross misconduct. Let's see here.
00:10:28.800um they said your postings on blue sky about white men in response to the killing of charlie
00:10:38.180clerk do not comply with our well social media policy for example you posted quote refusing to
00:10:45.440tear my clothes and smear my ashes smear ashes on my face and performative mourning for a white
00:10:50.240man that espoused violence is not the same of violence end quote and this is the second post0.58
00:10:57.120They are making an example of, quote, part of what keeps America so violent is the assistance that people perform care, empty goodness, and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.
00:11:11.660the end quote the post says basically that social media postings be respectful and that it's
00:11:24.900prohibited to disparage people based on their race gender or other protected characteristics
00:11:30.680so basically me doing my job um talking about not actually talking directly about her
00:11:41.460No. Rather about a pattern, documented pattern of shooters, whether it's mass media, mass shooters, whether it's politically motivated violence, a.k.a. domestic terrorism.
00:11:56.720the facts and the data are there, the overwhelming perpetrators of this crime are white men.0.99
00:12:05.340I think if you pull out a gun and shoot someone, that is a violent act.0.99
00:12:14.260Every single post I referenced white men, I said violent white men.0.98
00:12:18.360And somehow the post is interpreting what I'm saying as to be that I am being racist against white men.0.54
00:12:37.040I very specifically said those who commit violence and espouse hatred and violence.0.97
00:12:43.920I don't think that's an inherent characteristic of white men.
00:12:47.060But maybe the Post does. I'm sure we will see their reasoning soon enough. But yes, that is the real stated reason I was fired as a race columnist, race, gender, human rights columnist, because I mentioned white men.0.56
00:13:05.480it almost kind of sounds like an insult to white that the post is sort of insulting white men
00:13:12.040because you said violent white men that's who I'm talking about and they're saying
00:13:16.160oh that's an insult to white men everywhere and I was like well what do you think about what like
00:13:20.700it's sort of a revealing way to put it don't you agree I don't know what was going to do
00:13:25.760I was very clear for me as a human as a writer words mean things I put the what's what's the
00:13:34.720I'm thinking back to my grammar, my grammar days, the restrictive relative clause, meaning this is a subset of a demographic that has been documented by the FBI, the National Institute of Health, research after research and study after study,
00:13:56.620not only of the carrying out of these crimes, but also of the media coverage, the tone,
00:14:04.780the framing, the angles, when we find out that the perpetrators are white men, right?
00:14:09.860We get the sort of, he came from a good home.
00:16:12.320Who do we rhetorically sort of demand mourning from?
00:16:17.700Speaking of mourning, on Sunday, there was a public event honoring Charlie Kirk.
00:16:22.960They called it a funeral, but it looked more like a political rally.
00:16:27.200Pyrotechnics, Trump on stage railing against Biden and his other political opponents,
00:16:32.580claiming without evidence that Tylenol causes autism,
00:16:36.000and even talking about a federal takeover of Chicago for Charlie.
00:16:40.240And that's when Trump mentioned Kirk at all, because as over the top as the whole thing was, Charlie Kirk honestly kind of sounded like an afterthought.
00:16:48.760And honestly, it wasn't hard to think that Jimmy Kimmel and Karen had been right.
00:16:52.720The whole spectacle seemed less about grief and honoring someone's legacy and more about politics wrapped up in the language of mourning.
00:17:01.200something that really sticks with me about your post the post that the post quoted in the letter
00:17:09.140was that it seemed to me i mean i understood the point that you were making clearly right
00:17:13.640it's about excessive mourning and the expectation of excessive emotionality who gets that and i
00:17:21.220don't know if you saw they were calling it a funeral but i'm gonna call it a rally i don't
00:17:25.440know if you saw that yesterday after watching that spectacle it is difficult to disagree with
00:17:32.440that characterization that you laid out in that post that i mean i don't think anybody could watch
00:17:39.300it and not say this seems excessive the funeral that was held really when i watched it your words
00:17:46.620were echoing it was looming large so i was like oh karen really called it this does seem excessive
00:17:51.280hashtag I was right again um you know even even before the funeral right like even I think
00:17:58.240I think even right after my termination letter came through and again like I
00:18:03.940I did not even I I posted that on Blue Sky no backlash you know really people were like okay
00:18:16.000You know, maybe a little bit of, oh, shouldn't you give more space? But largely, I just went on with my day. And maybe about, yeah, I mean, 12, 13 hours later, the next day, I miss a phone call from the post. And then within minutes, like notice of termination, right?
00:18:35.300And then I think I see later, either the afternoon or the day after, might have been the day after, I saw a post from Nancy Grace. I think this is once they identified a suspect, an alleged suspect in Kirk's murder, Rep. Nancy Grace, all of a sudden starts talking about, you should pray for this man. Right? Something like that.
00:18:57.700the switch up was so like like like a switch was flipped olympic gold medal yeah i know like the
00:19:04.940the energy with which like they were able to do that pivot could power a thousand suns like
00:19:10.680i was right um because again this is a pattern um it's not just me this is a this is a pattern
00:19:20.500this has been documented documented about america this has been documented about the disparate
00:19:26.440treatments so of course you know not going to be surprised what what you know sunday has turned
00:19:33.360into um and when i say part of normalizing this espousing of of hatred also means absolving
00:19:43.700um charlie kirk's uh shooter um we remember the cries for for blood and we would get them
00:20:48.760when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent
00:20:56.600my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart
00:21:02.620and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying
00:21:10.280shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable
00:21:16.920So I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.0.66
00:21:22.380I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:21:29.780They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:21:33.740But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:21:37.200They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:21:40.320Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:21:49.280If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:21:55.200This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:22:07.680I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,
00:22:11.380the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:22:14.800I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:23:56.460over the weekend investigators announced there was no evidence linking Charlie Kirk's suspected
00:24:03.440shooter Tyler Robinson to any left-wing groups despite the administration's pledge to crack
00:24:09.180down on left-wing groups in retaliation for Kirk's murder and when the suspect was finally named
00:24:14.900the governor of Utah openly expressed disappointment that it wasn't someone they
00:24:18.880could easily demonize instead he admitted it was one of ours for 33 hours I was
00:24:26.380I was praying that that if this had to happen here, that it wouldn't be one of us, that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country.
00:24:43.160Sadly, that that that prayer was not answered the way I had hoped for.
00:27:24.700And this is what I would have said had I been given the right to reply.
00:27:32.960So, yeah, of course, all of these things, all these things matter.
00:27:37.740And, and yeah, I mean, this is, this is a place not only that I gave 11 years to, but for me, my path into not only into journalism, my, my sort of career actually started in freedom of expression work.
00:27:58.760As I was a press freedom analyst for Freedom House, actually, my Fulbright scholarship is on looking at freedom of radio speech, actually, in Ghana.
00:28:13.900So journalists and people being able to express themselves and the conditions, the economic and political conditions that they work under,
00:28:23.860was actually something that is deep at the core of what my work has been even before I started as a professional journalist.
00:28:32.620And this is why the Washington Post, part of the reason why Washington Post hired me is because I had these commitments to these principles.
00:28:39.160Keeping those principles at the forefront of her work has not always been pretty.
00:28:45.560In 2017, journalist Jamal Khashoggi began writing for The Post under Karen's editorship.
00:28:51.880Just over a year later, CCTV cameras captured him entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
00:29:13.420The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us
00:29:17.080so that he and I could edit it together.
00:29:19.520Now I have to accept that is not going to happen.
00:29:22.660This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post.
00:29:25.600This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world,
00:29:30.340a freedom he apparently gave his life for.
00:29:32.200I will be forever grateful he chose the Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.
00:29:41.120So for a lot of people maybe who followed my career as an opinions editor, I was the editor of Jamal Khashoggi,
00:29:50.360who was murdered for expressing himself in the Washington Post, murdered by Saudi agents.
00:29:59.440And I put my safety on the line. I had to get personal security. I risked a lot, gave up a lot to advocate, not only for Jamal, because I realized advocating for Jamal, helping to put the Washington Post as a symbol of how it should treat its writers, how it should stand behind its writers, even when it's hard.
00:30:26.420The Washington Post became a symbol for that. And I very much was tied into that. It hurts by heart. I'm stunned and I'm frankly befuddled as to now my connection with the Washington Post not only has been severed, but the relationship has now been inverse, that I've been punished, eliminated from their ranks.
00:30:54.260for being the journalist I was trained to be
00:30:59.960and that doing the work I was paid to do.
00:31:03.920So it's almost, you know, as if, you know,
00:31:09.840obviously I did not lose my life like Jamal did,
00:31:13.240but facing the same sort of pressures that Jamal did
00:31:18.860is just a chilling reminder of where we now find ourselves in like careening towards the abyss
00:31:26.960in terms of press freedom because again it's not just me you know i just i got fired two days
00:31:32.600afterwards or so or uh a week afterwards it was jimmy kimmel uh before me i um or at least before
00:31:41.340i went public matthew down from msnbc so i realized this is part of a climate of chilling
00:31:49.380of free speech of critique i'm not just chilling i mean this is beyond canceling this is
00:31:56.100um a certain sort of cruelty to it um you know it's not just cancel culture they're going they're
00:32:05.240using the FCC. Yeah. To Jimmy Kimmel. They're abandoning process with me. Right. This is a
00:32:15.780really chilling and scary moment for the, I was just doing my job. I have just been sticking to
00:32:23.380the values that I've always had for the last 15 years of not only my professional life, but my
00:32:27.460personal life that I believe in the right to speak the truth, even if it's uncomfortable.
00:32:35.240And it's sad that the Washington Post has decided to put itself on the wrong side of history in the spite when it seemed like just a couple of years ago, it seemed really invested in being on the right side of history when it came to silenced and challenged journalists.
00:32:51.540now? I don't know. Yeah, I remember. So the version of the post that you just described
00:32:57.540when they were really championing your work to support free expression, expression of journalists,
00:33:03.320protecting and standing up for journalists. I remember that. And looking back now, it feels
00:33:09.340like they were dining out on an agenda that you were setting. And it just the way that they,
00:33:14.520I know it's a very different post today, but does that feel kind of hollow now? They were more than
00:33:20.060happy to align themselves with your work, the work where you were like putting your safety
00:33:25.360on the line in very real ways. And then also, I remember just so clearly that you would say,
00:33:30.760this is, this should be a warning to everybody, right? He was a legal U.S. resident, right? And
00:33:36.860to like, and we still, you know, they never found his body. Like the way that you were signaling
00:33:43.800that as a a call to all journalists and the importance of the need to protect the free
00:33:50.380expression of journalists i think the post was more than happy to make that make your work
00:33:56.360their mission uh does that feel kind of hollow now that's a good question um i'm still
00:34:04.120processing it's like wait who what was real what wasn't um i will say though there were
00:34:10.320and happen and still remain journalists at that paper who stand 10 toes down on these values just
00:34:17.720as much as I do. This is a question for leadership and for our owner, frankly. And I, you know,
00:34:27.060credit to, he's now passed, rest in peace, but Fred Hyatt, who was the editorial page editor who
00:34:34.340hired me, who very much, even though we disagreed politically on many things, and he really
00:34:42.600modeled what it looked like to be a thoughtful but courageous journalist and stand up for
00:41:04.840Kind of feels like he's taking over more and more of my life.
00:41:07.260But I remember when he bought The Post, he said that he wanted the opinion section to champion personal liberty.
00:41:13.600You know, he wanted columnists to be provocative, to to he wanted, you know, opinions and takes that people might not always agree with to be published.
00:44:06.240Unless they're talking about something else
00:44:08.260other than quote-unquote free speech and debate.
00:44:11.540Is it really free speech and debate that they really want?
00:44:14.420Because you need actual free speech and you need journalists to be able to do their jobs, to be able to collect and report on and to provide framing and commentary on the world for people so that there can be an honest debate.
00:44:29.340But if what you're actually looking for is power and rhetorical domination, that's a different conversation.
00:44:38.540um but you know it's just it's it flies in the sort of general logic of all the folks who are
00:44:48.660saying personal liberties free markets none of those can be achieved without free speech
00:44:56.540point one period i mean to that point when i saw that you were being let go at the post
00:45:05.540I was sort of waiting because I'm thinking, well, certainly in two days time, I'm going to get a one on one sit down on a on a mainstream news show or something.
00:45:16.020I was sort of like waiting to see like who's going to who's going to get the first interview.
00:45:19.220So I was even more shocked when I heard that you said really no mainstream press reached out to you that the first interviews that you did were with podcasters and independent press.
00:45:29.840That's actually why I got in touch, because I was like, certainly you're you are going to be booked full of interviews.
00:45:36.220You said I saw an interview with, I think, Jim Acosta.
00:45:38.840You said that this was a sign of the times for mainstream media, that nobody was reaching out to you to talk about this.
00:45:44.640Nobody wanted to really talk about this story from mainstream press.
00:45:48.220What do you think that says about about where mainstream media is at right now?
00:45:52.740Yeah. So I'll clarify. So there will be there were people who who definitely like reach out.
00:45:59.060I got media, like sort of the mainstream media inquiries, but as far as sort of the prime time TV major network, like anchor one-on-ones to be able to really unpack this, not a sort of two-minute soundbite sort of thing.
00:46:14.880i mean i we we were the ones trying to pitch like hey can we take like no major takers for the tv
00:46:24.180the tv anchors so the first ones who who that i actually sat down with um after two or three days
00:46:31.280of of trying was thaw lemon um in a cafe and eating scrambled eggs and he was ingenious
00:46:39.980I saw the little clip you put out the short.
00:46:43.720Here's a little taste of Karen talking to Don Lemon over scrambled eggs at a diner.
00:46:48.600The fact that you're the first one to sit down with me and we're just sitting in a cafe
00:46:54.440is like a visualization of the path, at least for me, that I've gone being pushed in front
00:47:00.780of the world for free speech and protection of journalists and freedom of expression when
00:47:04.860my writer was killed, I got the SAR mainstream media treatment. And it's hitting me that whatever
00:47:11.760new journey this is going to be for me, in terms of defending the right to express yourself,
00:47:17.980that you and I are sitting here eating scrambled eggs. There are a few who reached out, but they
00:47:23.220wanted the sort of, you know, ensemble. And I get that that was their, you know, thing. But I was
00:47:28.840like no this is gonna this is gonna be big and this is all before jimmy kimmel um became an issue
00:47:35.580so yeah uh jim acosta was one of the first to reach out sub stackers actually and it just
00:47:42.920compared to how i was sort of pursued by the major tv networks again this is tv um when jamal
00:47:53.840kashukji was killed compared to like wow trying to to almost like like people to have to have
00:48:04.040uh me on air and especially you know being the last i was the last full-time black opinion writer
00:48:12.040left at the post in in washington dc which for folks who don't know so i've lived in dc my whole
00:48:18.180life that is crazy you know the post is is global but it's also my local hometown paper it is the
00:48:25.220paper that has been on my front stoop of my apartment every day for the last i don't know
00:48:30.20010 years dc is used to be called chocolate city it's like it's it's no longer a majority black
00:48:36.220city but it's a heavily black city especially against the backdrop of a of an increasing0.97
00:48:42.300hostile takeover of dc which we are all witnessing to have no black opinion columnists left is crazy0.95
00:48:49.060there is no other way to put it like it boggles my mind it truly is it just doesn't make any sense
00:48:55.120we are we are in the upside down yeah exactly so amongst that backdrop and a lot of these
00:49:01.920folks know knowing i don't necessarily hold it against them but it was just telling that
00:49:09.080But maybe for this story, which, again, this is against the backdrop of people being doxxed for their comments on Charlie Kirk.
00:49:18.960Again, Matthew Dowd being fired by MSNBC for very tame, also tame comments on Charlie Kirk.
00:49:27.100The threats coming from Charlie Kirk's, not even his fans, but from the administration over this.
00:49:36.460i'm not i'm not even it's just that has been is the climate this is being used to purge to fire
00:49:47.140to punish um you know who they deem to be their quote unquote you know enemies yeah um so uh
00:49:57.180i'm i'm not the the only one i just happen to be again before jimmy kimball happens to be a
00:50:05.340pretty high profile prize deer they got um but yeah it was just also telling that
00:50:16.280i don't know it felt it's been feeling liberating to be honest be able to speak
00:50:24.880more freely with independent media people who are building their own audiences and and platforms
00:50:31.620um and to me i'm like wow is this really the sign of the times particularly that
00:50:37.800i'm sitting down with don lemon who was once had his own prime time show that was also canceled
00:50:45.480i was like don was pushed out of cnn because of in the in 2018 because of0.88
00:50:52.140shit that went down with the trump administration like you have a little club it seems like we've0.97
00:50:57.040got a little rebel alliance building right now um being uh being kind of forced out some of us0.72
00:51:04.180more dramatically than others I think mine is pretty dramatic um but they have been the ones
00:51:09.980to to embrace me like wholehearted me and like not just have me on but just to say like Karen
00:51:15.080it's gonna be okay it's gonna be all right like and I've been really really um just as a human
00:51:21.960uh grateful for that um because i don't know as i told uh don lemon and i'll say here like
00:51:30.160especially not just what happened to me but in jimmy kimmel's case the fcc getting involved
00:51:37.700again for me as someone who's studied media policy not just in the u.s but around the world
00:51:42.820and studied tactics being used to science the media this is this is code yellowish yellowish
00:51:51.800red like orange like this is this is bad this is me this is bad um i um for for sort of the
00:52:02.900corporate corporate media this week you know you'll see me around a bit more um you know
00:52:10.400doing, doing the rounds. But yeah, last week that was, that was, that was chilling. I'll say that.
00:53:58.180Let's just say things are bad and they can get worse.
00:54:03.120Um, I have said for a long time, um, both internally and externally, that this is a time for, for people to really organize and stand together.
00:54:20.160Shout out to the Washington Post Union. I know basically as we speak, they're waging war for me inside, right?
00:54:28.140So, again, when I think of the post, it's not just about post leadership. Like, I know my colleagues are, they've raised, they've condemned my firing, they've issued a statement, you know, there are processes that are going on that, you know, I'm a longtime proud union member. This is why unions are important, right?
00:54:58.140That being said, how can I talk about reality without being super cryptic?0.99
00:55:17.660I am deeply worried about America, about this country.
00:55:24.500I am profoundly worried for not just journalists, particularly black journalists.
00:55:31.880I do not see it as a coincidence that, Bridget, as you said, and in D.C. in particular, as this administration is literally trying to like forcibly recolonize this place.
00:55:42.620military occupation literal checkpoints where people are having to feel like they need to
00:55:48.720carry around their papers where the supreme court has basically said that racial profiling is okay
00:55:54.080i do not see it as a coincidence that these folks have taken out the entire line of black
00:56:03.580opinion journalists at the washington post opinion journalists for those who don't know as
00:56:08.580different than sort of quote-unquote regular reporters who are just thought to stick to the
00:56:12.320facts and the who, what, when, where, why's of things and all that. Opinion journalists, we get
00:56:16.960to go beyond that, still use facts, but go beyond that to say this is what this means and this is
00:56:22.780why this matters and this is how we should prepare. We get to say this is right and this is wrong.
00:56:29.540If I was still there at the polls, I would be saying what is happening to D.C. right now,
00:56:34.020what is happening to journalists right now being taken out, this is wrong and this is scary and
00:56:39.860this is a historical warning. I teach this in my class for race and media that I'm already seeing
00:56:46.620the patterns that I teach about that have led to unspeakable moments in history, okay? So I am
00:56:55.120saddened that the place that I spent 11 years of my life defending press, not only press freedom,
00:57:02.780but trying to do my best to get America to be, I don't know, in a better place,