Emily Wilder, the 22-year-old journalist who was fired from the Associated Press last week over purported social media policy violations, called the termination “an opportunity to make me a scapegoat” amid a conservative-led “smear campaign” that seized on opinions expressed in college. “What future does it promise to aspiring reporters that an institution like The Associated Press would sacrifice those with the least power to the cruel trolling of a group of anonymous bullies?” she asked in a statement on Saturday.
Wilder’s firing came days after conservatives targeted the Arizona-based, junior staffer for pro-Palestinian views and criticism of Israel that she expressed during her time at Stanford University, where she graduated from last year—an “already-public history of activism,” she noted. Amid the online attacks coming from the Stanford College Republicans and big-name conservatives like Senator Tom Cotton and commentator Ben Shapiro, editors at the AP “reassured me I would not face punishment for my previous activism,” Wilder said, and claimed they “were only hoping to support me as I received an onslaught of sexist, antisemitic, racist and violent comments and messages.”
But the news agency fired her “less than 48 hours later,” in a letter saying she had violated its social media policy during her time as an AP staffer. Wilder first joined the AP less than three weeks earlier, as a news associate—a junior-level position that Buzzfeed News notes did not involve covering international news and was not a reporting role. The journalist said she was told the supposed infraction occurred sometime between then and Wednesday but that her managers refused to identify the social media posts in question.
“Every time a news organization sacrifices an employee because an online mob demanded it—which happens regardless of ideological motive, from the NYT to the AP—they confirm that optics outweigh all other concerns and they invite more bad faith campaigns against journalists,” tweeted New York’s Olivia Nuzzi, who stressed that the standard for journalists should be fairness rather than the myth of objectivity. Some journalists pointed to the firing as an instance of what Wilder on Saturday called “the asymmetrical enforcement of rules around objectivity and social media that has censored so many journalists—particularly Palestinian journalists and other journalists of color.” Former AP reporter and manager Pauline Arrillaga suggested AP might “lead on this much-needed transformation” in the industry and “acknowledged there are inherent flaws in these policies,” specifically “with how they are governed and applied.”
In an email on Sunday morning, a spokesperson for the AP confirmed Wilder “was dismissed for violations of AP’s social media policies during her time at AP” and reiterated the statement that the news agency has given multiple outlets following the outcry to Wilder’s termination: “We have this policy so the comments of one person cannot jeopardize our journalists covering the story. Every AP journalist is responsible for safeguarding our ability to report with fairness and credibility, and cannot take sides in public forums.”
Amid the latest violence between Israel and Gaza, Wilder tweeted views interrogating the language used by media outlets covering the conflict; she also retweeted articles about the mounting death toll in Gaza and the Israeli airstrike that leveled the high-rise where the AP’s own bureau was housed. But in an interview with Buzzfeed following her termination, Wilder “said she did not believe any of her social media posts were egregious enough for her to be singled out and fired and that the AP should have given her a warning instead of firing her immediately.” She maintained that stance in her statement Saturday, noting the AP could have taken “whatever misstep I made a teaching opportunity—as is the point of the news associate program” rather than bowing to right-wing pressure. “It’s terrifying as a young woman who was hung out to dry when I needed support from my institution most,” she wrote, “and it’s enraging as a Jewish person … that I could be defamed as antisemitic and thrown under the bus in the process.”
Multiple journalists have raised the question of what role, if any, executive editor Sally Buzbee had in the decision, which comes just weeks before she departs the AP for the Washington Post, where she’ll succeed Marty Baron as executive editor. (Buzbee did not respond to an email seeking comment on the decision.) The AP giving in to right-wing media trolls “is also a scandal for The Washington Post,” the New Republic’s Alex Shephard wrote, noting the Post itself has come under fire for punishing a reporter following outcry over her social media activity. Journalists will continue to find themselves thrown under the bus, Shephard argued, “until newsroom leaders learn just to ignore bad-faith critics and send them on their way to easier marks.”
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