NY Times Producer Andy Mills Resigns Amid Continued Caliphate Fallout, Renewed Scrutiny of Misconduct Allegations

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 18: Andy Mills and Rukmini Callimachi pose in the press room with Peabody Award for ‘Caliphate’ at the 78th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony Sponsored By Mercedes-Benz at Cipriani Wall Street on May 18, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Peabody)

Andy Mills, a New York Times audio producer who was one of the driving forces behind the now-discredited Caliphate podcast, has resigned from the Times amid ongoing controversy around the podcast and resurfaced allegations of harassment and misconduct at his prior employer.

Mills announced his resignation in a letter posted to his website Friday, addressing what went wrong with Caliphate, and acknowledging questions about why he didn’t seem to face any apparent consequences.

“While I remain proud of our team and what we were able to accomplish with Caliphate, getting any aspect of any story wrong, by any degree, is a journalist’s worst nightmare. After Caliphate was corrected, in print and in audio, peers of mine in the audio industry, from outside of The Times, began to raise questions about why I had been allowed to remain in my position.

There are answers to these questions: When it came to fact-checking support for the project, the Times’ leadership told us that they had their own internal system in place for stories of this nature. That system broke down. And they did not blame us. In fact, throughout The Times’ reexamination of Caliphate, they told our production team that we’d engaged in rigorous and careful journalism. One masthead editor even made it a point to tell me: ‘I won’t let you blame yourself.'”

Mills also addressed the allegations of misconduct against him during his time at WNYC’s Radiolab, saying that he was disciplined for his actions, and had been transparent about them with the Times.

“Like all human beings, I have made mistakes that I wish I could take back. Nine years ago, when I first moved to New York City, I regularly attended monthly public radio meet up parties where I looked for love and eventually earned a reputation as a flirt. Eight years ago during a team meeting, I gave a colleague a back rub. Seven years ago I poured a drink on a coworker’s head at a drunken bar party. I look back at those actions with extraordinary regret and embarrassment.

All of this happened while I was working at WNYC. When my managers there confronted me with how my unprofessional behavior was making people feel, I was ashamed. I apologized to the individuals that I’d learned I had upset or made uncomfortable. And I was punished. I received a warning from WNYC’s HR department that I needed to be more professional or look for work elsewhere. I was told to meet with a professional work-place trainer. I was a production assistant at the time, and the promotion to producer that I had been working toward was denied.

I took this reckoning seriously and I continued to work at WNYC for nearly two more years without further incident.

When I started working at The Times, in 2016, I was open with my bosses and colleagues about this experience and what I’d learned from it. They said that they appreciated my candor and defended me publicly, including in New York Magazine in 2018.”

Earlier in the week, reporter Yashar Ali reported that Mills’ company Slack and email had been deactivated, but Mills had not apparently separated from the company at the time. When asked for confirmation of these events, the Times declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Times did confirm Mills’ resignation to Mediaite on Friday.

The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple detailed the misconduct allegations against Mills during his time at Radiolab, which Mills left for the Times in 2016. In addition to an unwanted back massage and pouring a drink on a co-worker’s head, Mills reportedly told co-workers that a colleague, a woman, only got a job to fill a “quota,” and regularly spoke over female colleagues, rephrased others’ ideas as his own, and bad-mouthed others’ ideas, according to Wemple.

On January 7, Radiolab posted an apology for its handling of Mills at the time.

In December, the Times retracted the core of its popular Caliphate podcast, after an internal review revealed significant journalistic failings. One of the podcast’s main subjects, Canadian Shehroze Chaudhry, was found to have lied about carrying out executions for ISIS in Syria, and has since been charged with perpetrating a terrorist hoax.

Following the retraction, the Times returned the Peabody award Caliphate had won, for which Mills had given the acceptance speech. The Pulitzer Prize Board removed Caliphate from its list of 2019 finalists, and the Overseas Press Club also rescinded its 2018 award to the podcast.

Caliphate’s lead reporter Rukmini Callimachi, whose work has long focused on international terrorism, has been reassigned to cover higher education, the Daily Beast reported Friday, and Michael Barbaro, host of the Times podcast The Daily, has faced criticism for his handling of the fallout from the Caliphate retraction.