A briefing filed in a US District Court last week shows The Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi was suspended by the newspaper for a tweet critical of a new policy.
In March, the Post made the decision to remove bylines from stories about the Russian conflict with Ukraine. The policy was enacted after Russian President Vladimir Putin made threats against reporters stationed in the country.
In response, Farhi tweeted: “Some internal news: In response to Putin’s threats against reporters in Russia, the @washingtonpost will remove bylines and datelines from stories produced by our journalists in Russia. Goal is to ensure staff’s safety.
Been around a while. Never seen anything like this.”
The managing editors of the Post — Krissah Thompson and Tracy Grant — subsequently suspended Farhi for five days, alleging his tweet jeopardized the safety of his colleagues in Russia.
The complaint filed in District Court, first reported by The Washingtonian, claims a collective bargaining agreement with the Washington Baltimore News Guild and The Washington Post requires disciplinary hearings to go through an arbiter and any disciplinary action can be contested by filing a grievance and presenting a case in front of an arbitrator, which Farhi wasn’t offered. The complain also alleges this process wasn’t followed when the newspaper made the decision to fire Felicia Sonmez for similar social media related incidents.
