Washington Confidential

New York Times Blocks Reporter From Race Discrimination Lawsuit Meeting

Evan Gahr Investigative Journalist
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Sure, the New York Times published the street where Darren Wilson lives and risked getting him killed because its readers are supposedly entitled to the information.

And the paper offered similar high-minded rationalizations in 2005 when it revealed a secret NSA warrantless surveillance program of communications between Americans and suspected terrorists abroad. More recently, the Times praised Edward Snowden for his disclosure of classified NSA activities.

But the Grey Lady is actually a big fan of secrecy — at least when it gets sued in federal court for allegedly purging older workers of color and firing a female manager after she complained that a male subordinate’s behavior was sexist.

First, the paper of record denied all of Tracy Quitasol’s allegations, but would not provide any evidence, like the racial make-up of its current workforce, to refute her claim that one of its top executives replaced the veteran minority employees she ousted entirely with younger whites.

Now, the Times is refusing to allow reporters to cover the court-ordered mediation session next week for Quitasol’s lawsuit, first reported here and then by the New York Post.

The non-binding mediation conference, scheduled for Nov. 18 before City University of New York Law School professor Beryl Blaustone, is not confidential. According to the mediation office of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, both sides can bring anybody they want.

But the liberal broadsheet, which has also not reported the lawsuit, even though its news pages are regularly awash with stories about alleged race discrimination, declined The Daily Caller’s request to attend.

Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy, who unlike Washington Post editor Marty Baron knows how to hang-up on me without sounding defensive, said, “Evan, we don’t have reporters come to our mediation sessions. It’s not something we do. So sorry.”