Is it ever acceptable for a journalist to ask a successful woman if she has slept her way to the top?
If he does, and a female reader criticizes him for it, is it a forgivable offense for him to suggest that she is complaining only because she wishes that she, too, could have had that opportunity?
Can you believe we’re talking about this in 2012?
And that the journalist in question writes regularly for the New York Times Magazine?
It all began when Jennifer Weiner, a former newspaper reporter who has written nine best-selling novels, read Andrew Goldman’s latest “Talk” feature in last weekend’s Times Magazine.
The interview was with Tippi Hedren, the actress who starred in “The Birds” and is the subject of a new HBO movie that takes up her relationship with the director Alfred Hitchcock. Mr. Goldman, a freelancer who regularly writes the “Talk” feature, asked Ms. Hedren if she had ever been tempted to help her career along by having sex with directors.
Ms. Weiner was appalled – especially because she recalled an earlier instance in which Mr. Goldman had asked a female celebrity, though jokingly, if she had used her body to boost her career.
And, so, like every modern writer, Ms. Weiner turned to Twitter, where she wrote:
@jenniferweiner: Saturday am. Iced coffee. NYT mag. See which actress Andrew Goldman has accused of sleeping her way to the top. #traditionsicoulddowithout
Mr Goldman responded on Twitter (his account has since been deactivated):
@jenniferweiner sensing pattern. Little Freud in me thinks you would have liked at least to have had opportunity to sleep way to top
From there, if you can imagine such a thing, it only got uglier, with the New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum joining the fray, and with Mr. Goldman then suggesting he had no choice but to counterattack. In that response, he used a strong obscenity.
Finally, on Monday, he apologized to Ms. Weiner. (A full Storify of the incident can be found here.)
I asked Hugo Lindgren, the editor of the Times Magazine, about the incident sending him a blog post that raised questions about some of Mr. Goldman’s earlier questions to women he interviewed, including one with the NPR journalist Terry Gross and one with Whitney Cummings, both of which had elicited criticism from some female readers.
My questions and his responses are below:
1. How do you respond to the complaints that Mr. Goldman’s questions are frequently sexist and misogynist?
We don’t publish material we believe to be misogynist or sexist. The blog post you sent me cited 3 examples, out of probably a thousand published questions that Andrew has asked since he took over the column. In the context of the full interviews, none of them struck me as sexist or misogynist. There were frank, sensitive questions, not declarations or assertions of his own. In the Terry Gross interview, Andrew is not making his own presumption about her sexuality. He is referring to an anecdote that was published in the introduction of her own book, which was made even clearer when she makes a joke about how widespread this misperception is. The Whitney Cummings question is perhaps a little cheekier but still refers to something other people have said about her — “On those Comedy Central roasts, your fellow comedians liked to joke about how you slept your way to fame. How accurate is that criticism?”
2. What is your view of the specific question to Ms. Hedren about sleeping her way to the top? Did you see it in advance? If not, would you have approved it?
I saw it and approved it. This is the full question: The worst abuse happened after you rebuffed his advances. Actors have been known to sleep with less powerful directors for advancement in show business. Did you ever consider it? The whole reason for the interview is a new HBO movie about how Hitchcock sexually harassed her. It was an unsavory decision she was actually faced with, so he asked her about it: He made no assertions about what she should or shouldn’t have done. Andrew’s questions acknowledge and refer to sexism in the world, but they are not, in and of themselves, sexist.
For what it’s worth, his editor and top editor are both women. They did not object to the question. But I take full responsibility for it all the same.
3. What is your response to the Twitter back and forth as detailed in the piece I’ve attached here?
I thought Andrew was needlessly rude and insulting, and I told him that. He apologized to Jennifer Weiner, and she accepted it.
4. Could you clarify Mr. Goldman’s position with the magazine? Is he a freelancer? A part-time staffer? Does he do other work than the Q&A?
He is a freelancer. He has not yet contributed to the magazine in other ways, but has an active assignment.
5. Is he in good standing at this point? Are you providing any coaching/feedback/disciplinary measures? Does all of this change his standing with The Times?
I made it clear to him that kind of behavior he exhibited in this Twitter exchange would not be tolerated, and he was contrite and accepted that without argument. My feeling is that he had an unfortunate outburst, and that he will learn from it. He works very hard on these interviews and does a good job. Readers are entitled to whatever opinions they have of his work, and he needs to be comfortable with that and engage thoughtfully when appropriate, or not at all.
I talked by phone with Jennifer Weiner on Wednesday. She said that she enjoyed some of Mr. Goldman’s work but had found some of it offensive.
“I don’t see myself as a humorless, schoolmarm-y scold approaching the Magazine with a highlighter in hand,” she said. “But Andrew Goldman is sometimes on the wrong side of the really offensive line.”
And when she found fault with his question to Ms. Hedren, “the response shouldn’t be ‘shut up, you’re ugly, and no one wants to sleep with you,’ ” she said.
“He is talented, and funny. I would like to see him do his job better,” she said.
It sounds as though he’s going to get that chance. Given his misbehavior on Twitter and his status as a highly replaceable freelancer, I think his editors are extraordinarily generous to give it to him.
And, given the level of obscenity and hideous misjudgment in Mr. Goldman’s Twitter messages, a clear social media policy at The Times may be in order.
An earlier version of this post misspelled the actress's given name. She is Tippi Hedren, not Tippy.