Erin Overbey, a veteran employee of The New Yorker, was let go by the publication on Friday due to unprofessional behaviour and performance concerns. Last week, she accused editor-in-chief David Remnick of sabotaging her by introducing faults into her work.
In yet another round of poison-pen tweets on Monday, archive editor Overbey, 50, who has been with The New Yorker since 1994, announced her termination and said Remnick, 63, had planned to “intimidate and silence women.”
Internal New Yorker documents revealed that Overbey was fired “due to a pattern of conduct that is disruptive,” according to Confider on Monday. Former coworkers said that Overbey was “unnecessarily antagonistic” and frequently used to social media to voice her complaints about management.
Conde Nast’s top executives made the decision to fire Overbey, and CEO Roger Lynch was involved in the process early on.
According to Confider, Overbey’s termination letter stated that she was being fired for conduct that “undermines the journalistic integrity of our magazine,” which includes the last week’s Twitter attack on Remnick.
This follows prior incidents in which you have made unfounded accusations against colleagues, for which you have been counselled.
These egregious and baseless remarks maligned your colleague and called into question the journalistic ethics and integrity of The New Yorker, a magazine that prides itself on accuracy.
The letter continued, citing Overbey’s history of performance concerns: “Your history of performance issues… Your history of acting improperly and unprofessionally towards coworkers Your most recent infraction of the Company’s Global Business Communications Policy, as well as… Your Final Warning for Self-Plagiarism, which was issued on September 10, 2021.
Four current and former employees, according to Confider, described Overbey as “an opportunist” who had been dissatisfied with The New Yorker for years due to management changes she believed may jeopardise her control over the magazine’s “fiefdom.”
Overbey had a different take on the situation, labelling The New Yorker’s statements about her as “absurd,” and repeating her claims that management had been attacking her specifically.
I do think this is a focused effort to target someone who wouldn’t shut up about some things the magazine wanted them to shut up about, she said.
Condé has a policy that expressly states that no employee can speak to any member of the press without first obtaining approval from management, including speaking off the record or on background.
She also claimed that the magazine asked staff members to speak against her to the media.
Overbey had been employed by the magazine for about 30 years, but she claimed on Twitter that the relationship deteriorated after she began criticising the wage gap between men and women and the dearth of black editors, noting that there hadn’t been one for feature articles in nearly 15 years.
She emphasised her worries about diversity in her interview with Confider, saying, “This is primarily about the lack of diversity and the absence of wage equity at the magazine.”
The New Yorker refuted her assertions and stated that they were constantly working to increase their diversity.
While we don’t believe these tweets present a full or fair view of The New Yorker and its ongoing efforts, there is always more work to do, and we look forward to doing it.
A spokesperson for Condé Nast said that “nearly 40% of new hires at Condé Nast are from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.”
Overbey escalated her criticism of Remnick and the magazine in her tweets on Monday.
She wrote on Twitter, “So the @NewYorker has dismissed me, effective immediately.” ‘I’m discussing the possibility of filing a grievance against the termination with the union. However, I’ll say these things first:
The New Yorker is a remarkable institution in many respects. But it’s also the epicentre of a regressive literary gatekeeping, class exclusivity, and outdated cultural ideas that, quite frankly, have no connection to or relevance in the contemporary world as we know it.
Furthermore, she noted that despite being less qualified for the job, her predecessor in the role of archive editor was paid 20% more than she was.
The @NewYorker has never refuted the information I have provided: 1) that my performance was reviewed soon after I expressed concerns about gender disparity and inclusion at the magazine in an email.
Remnick, according to Overbey’s continuous assertions, is the one who made factual errors in the copy.
“Several errors that were noted in an email criticising me during my performance assessment were not mine; and 3) these were errors that David Remnick introduced to the copy,” the email said.
In a campaign that she claims was intended to “intimidate and silence women,” Overbey said that he intentionally made mistakes on numerous times so that he could penalise her.
The publication has maintained that the problems Overbey pointed out were found ahead of time and fixed.
Overbey claims that the story started earlier this year when officials at the venerable journal abruptly launched a “performance evaluation” into her work.
In an email sent four days earlier, Overbey—who works as the magazine’s Classics newsletter editor in addition to her position as archive editor—reportedly expressed her concerns about gender equity in the workplace.
According to Overbey, the performance evaluation was requested “on the basis that I was, in part, being ‘disrespectful’ and possibly ‘insubordinate’” She claimed that about a year previously, when she had voiced her displeasure with the lack of diversity in the media.
Brass allegedly informed the employee—who maintains that there had been issues about her work performance “for about a year”—during the meeting.
Overbey claimed that during the review, management called attention to factual inaccuracies in her writing that the editor claimed were afterwards added.
Two mistakes in particular caught Overbey’s attention, according to her: the first saw her refer to the magazine’s Fiction Issue, which was published earlier this month, as the “Summer Issue,” and the second saw her write that longtime New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm passed away in June 2022 rather than June 2021. While Overbey was being scrutinised, the two mistakes were released.
I was informed that the performance review was being conducted because I was, in part, being “disrespectful,” maybe “insubordinate,” and had factual errors in my writing, according to Overbey.
As a “female whistleblower” last week, Overbey acknowledged that the Summer-Fiction issue was questionable but argued that the second fault was introduced into her work without her knowledge.
While the “Summer Issue” is debatable, Janet Malcolm did not pass away “earlier this year,” according to Overbey’s tweet. “She died last summer,” was said.
She continued, “One would expect me to be aware of that fact since I am the magazine’s archivist. And I am; I would never make a mistake like this.
Instead, Overbey claimed, Remnick, who has been the magazine’s editor for the entirety of Overbey’s time with the publication, added the factual mistakes.
As justification for the claimed modifications, Overbey stated that Remnick, who joined The New Yorker in 1992 as a staff writer before being appointed to chief editor in 1998, “understood that I was under a performance review & may be penalised or reprimanded harshly for them.”
Overbey continued by listing further occasions where her writing was purportedly changed out of spite.
In the string of tweets, Overbey stated, “I highlight some of them to indicate the lengths to which even progressive organisations or newspapers may go when they actively seek to chastise or professionally punish someone who has come on their radar.”
Overbey claims she was singled out because Remnick and other men in the magazine’s management are alarmed by the increased likelihood of women speaking out against sexist behaviour.
No matter how progressive the magazine, everything in the legacy media business is focused on maintaining the current quo, according to Overbey.
And anyone who challenges it or makes an effort to modify it is subject to a great deal of pressure.
“Publications or legacy magazines may frequently use tactics ranging from icing you out professionally to workplace penalties to discourage people from speaking up about inequality in their workplace.
These publications or legacy magazines happily publish feature pieces on the lack of diversity in other fields.
The editor wrote, “These magazines frequently assert that all they want is for people to voice these issues internally—away from social media & the public’s eyes.
But everyone is aware that’s not truly the case. I’ve been under a lot of strain lately because of my persistence and consistency in speaking up and refusing to keep quiet about workplace inequity.
Many employees who try to raise concerns internally are frequently labelled problematic or penalised.
She continued by alleging that Remnick, a renowned journalist and author who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, was using the alleged campaign to “intimidate and silence” her.
David Remnick, the editor-in-chief of the @NewYorker, is the male magazine colleague who introduced these errors to my copy while I was undergoing a performance assessment,’ Overbey stated.
I make no attempt to comprehend why he did this. In response to the aforementioned misinformation regarding her late colleague, she replied, “I do know that he had extensive knowledge of Malcolm’s work and when she died.
Then, Overbey proposed the theory that her manager had planned the mistakes as a pretext to punish and suppress her for her outspokenness.
She claimed that the essence of Remnick’s purported con was “the specificity and the nearly granular detail”—”the never knowing if you’re going to be called rude or be told that you’re in error.”
It’s intended to keep you busy and distracted to the point where you’re too worn out or overwhelmed to continue speaking up.
You’re supposed to never want to speak out again after hearing it. And it’s intended to help you realise the professional and career costs of raising your voice.
“Powerful institutions aim to intimidate or suppress women because they are terrified of the strength of one voice and its capacity to influence others,” she continued.
There is always a chance of overreaching if you try to target and/or build a trap for an employee, especially an institutional critic, she continued.
It’s wise to realise that there is always a danger of being caught instead when going to such measures to accuse someone.
Overbey stated that she is thinking about making a formal complaint in response to the claims.
She claims to have emails from Remnick to back up her claims, and she’s asking the magazine to issue an apology.
She added, “I would like to assume that the @NewYorker completely knows how professionally serious & highly hurtful it is to be blamed, censured & fined for errors that are not one’s own.”
“I would expect that [The New Yorker] would have the decency to issue me an apology for trying to penalise a long-serving female employee with a successful track record for mistakes made by the magazine’s EIC,” the writer said.
Last week, Remnick refuted the allegations via a magazine representative. The representative stated in an email that “The New Yorker is highly devoted to truth” and that “it is ludicrous and just plain wrong” to suggest that anyone at the publication would ever intentionally add inaccuracies into a piece for any purpose.