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New York Editor Resigns After Publishing Article By Canadian Journalist Acquitted Of Sex Crimes

David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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The editor at the New York Review of Books has resigned over his decision to run a column by former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi — a once-celebrated Canadian journalist who was acquitted of sex crimes. Ghomeshi was the center of a highly-publicized Toronto trial that rocked the Canadian media establishment.

In his article, Ghomeshi stated, “I’ve become a hashtag” to describe his life since that trial.

But Ian Buruma says he will not apologize for running Ghomeshi’s article that focused on the #MeToo movement, saying, “I have now myself been convicted on Twitter, without any due process.”

Buruma made the comments in an interview with the Dutch publication Vrij Nederland. He was obliquely referring to Ghomeshi’s experience: acquitted by a Canadian court on a series of sexual assault charges by still presumed guilty on social media.

CBC News fired Ghomeshi long before his acquittal and never rehired him.

The Toronto Star, the paper that first broke the Ghomeshi story after receiving information from the CBC journalist’s female co-workers, confirmed with the New York Review of Books that Buruma had resigned late Wednesday.

“It is rather ironic: as editor of The New York Review of Books, I published a theme issue about #MeToo-offenders who had not been convicted in a court of law but by social media. And now I myself am publicly pilloried,” Buruma told Vrij.

Buruma says he made the decision to leave the celebrated literary review because many university advertisers were on the verge of boycotting the publication over the Ghomeshi piece.

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