On Saturday afternoon Sarah Kendzior publicly announced her resignation as an Al Jazeera English columnist, alleging that the outlet wants its writers to conform to a model that does not allow “room for freedom of thought.”
In a long string of tweets, the St. Louis-based writer lamented the outlet’s changing policies and bidded farewell:
I may or may not have an op-ed on racial discrimination and wage theft in Al Jazeera English this week. AJE is about to change.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
Writing for AJ English has been great. I will always be grateful to them for running work on poverty, race, and other controversial topics.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
But there are new rules. We're discouraged from researching content of our op-eds. Op-eds should be counterintuitive “hot takes” ala Slate.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
The rules apply to other writers too. You will no longer see the academics + researchers whose in-depth knowledge made the section distinct
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
I’m most read op-ed writer in AJE history. My articles go viral + are acclaimed. But I write about controversial topics in a distinct style.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
No room for freedom of thought under the new model. My heart is broken. I thank everyone for reading. And I will miss you very much.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
They didn't ask me to go. They asked me to not research my own articles and to conform to a model. I don't think that's fair to readers.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
Here's my prior work so you can see what they now find inappropriate. Encourage you to read other AJE writers as well http://t.co/LuDeUjePzs
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
I am very sad to write this. It came as a shock to me and to the other writers. I'm grateful for the past employees who made it what it was.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
This is a lesson for all of you. You can get high traffic. You can get critical acclaim. But touch certain topics, you'll find trouble.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
.@thom_roland Not about traffic. My writing was very high traffic. And they liked it. It's about new rules requiring conformity to a model.
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 20, 2014
It is unclear from her tweets what exact policy changes have been instituted at AJE. We’ve reached out to the network for comment and will update if and when we hear back.
UPDATE 09/21/14 – 12:35 p.m.: Imad Musa, Head of Online at Al Jazeera English, responded Sunday with the following statement:
A recent Twitter conversation initiated by one of our respected contributors, Sarah Kendzior, has led to some confusion about our editorial processes at aljazeera.com.
Sarah is one of our long-time contributors, and she has recently suggested that we have censored her because one of her pieces had not been published a few days after submission. However, her piece was scheduled to run this week, and this was communicated to her by our Opinion editor before this series of tweets.
It is industry standard for writers to be asked to pitch their ideas before submitting their articles to avoid overlap. I’m still unclear as to how this could be misinterpreted.
This is not a case of censorship, media restrictions or changes in editorial standards.
Aljazeera.com – and especially its Opinion section – will always be the home of brave and thought-provoking debate and analysis on the issues that matter most.
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