Advertising

Andrew Sullivan is out as a columnist at New York Magazine because his coworkers believe his “conservative” viewpoints are “physically harming” them, Sullivan wrote in a farewell column.

“The quality of my work does not appear to be the problem,” Sullivan wrote for the publication on Friday. “I have a long essay in the coming print magazine on how plagues change societies, after all. I have written some of the most widely read essays in the history of the magazine, and my column has been popular with readers.

“What has happened, I think, is relatively simple: A critical mass of the staff and management at New York Magazine and Vox Media no longer want to associate with me, and, in a time of ever tightening budgets, I’m a luxury item they don’t want to afford,” Sullivan said. “And that’s entirely their prerogative. They seem to believe, and this is increasingly the orthodoxy in mainstream media, that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and

gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space. Actually attacking, and even mocking, critical theory’s ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media.”

He added: “That, to the best of my understanding, is why I’m out of here.”

Sullivan first announced he would be leaving the publication in a Tuesday Twitter message, writing at the time, “I’m sad because the editors I worked with there are among the finest in the country, and I am immensely grateful to them for vastly improving my work. I have no beef with my colleagues, many of whom I admire and are friends.”

The announcement came shortly after New York Times editor Bari Weiss announced she had resigned after serving for three years as an opinion editor for her publication. Weiss said in a statement published on her website that her coworkers frequently called her “Nazi and a racist,” but said the ideological battle within the Times was the “same one raging inside other publications around the country.”

Sullivan noted in Friday’s column that his colleagues viewed him as conservative despite being “a major and early supporter” of President Barack Obama and his plan to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden in this year’s presidential race. “Maybe it’s worth pointing out

that ‘conservative’ in my case means that I have passionately opposed Donald J. Trump and pioneered marriage equality, that I support legalized drugs, criminal-justice reform, more redistribution of wealth, aggressive action against climate change, police reform, a realist foreign policy, and laws to protect transgender people from discrimination. I was one of the first journalists in established media to come out.

“It seems to me that if this conservatism is so foul that many of my peers are embarrassed to be working at the same magazine, then I have no idea what version of conservatism could ever be tolerated,” he added. “And that’s fine.”

Sullivan said he planned to return to blogging and would continue offering a weekly newsletter to his readers.

New York Magazine editor in chief David Haskell said in a Tuesday statement that he viewed the publication as “a place where the liberal project is hashed out,” but said of Sullivan, “Publishing conservative commentary, or critiques of liberalism and the left, in 2020 is difficult to get right, and thoughtful, well-meaning people can come to different conclusions about it.”

Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Media, New York Magazine