Those that live in glass newsrooms shouldn’t throw stones.
Via The Hill:
“Not every horny narcissist with bad judgment is named Donald Trump.”
That was the actual “reportage” of New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush last year, in an article referring to the online sexual exploits of former congressman Anthony Weiner.
It appears, in retrospect, that Thrush might well have been describing himself.
Now, as long-silent accusations of sexual harassment surface like so many whack-a-moles, Thrush is one of the latest casualties.
News reports about his behavior, allegedly inflicting unwanted advances on a series of young women, describe the fedora-wearing Thrush as a successful and influential reporter who once worked for Politico and was then plucked away by the New York Times — once, perhaps, the most prestigious news publication in the world.
Some of his accusers say they feared his industry connections and felt smeared by him after they rebuffed his advances — all of which Thrush has denied.
But there’s a question as to how he was allowed to become an influential force in newsrooms and in political journalism, as described by offended female colleagues.
“Thrush, just by his stature, put women in a position of feeling they had to suck up and move on from an uncomfortable encounter,” wrote his former Politico colleague Laura McGann on Vox.com. She added, “Thrush is a talker — or, as many put it, ‘a bullshi–er.’ He likes to hear gossip, and he likes to spread it.”
McGann goes on to claim that Thrush manufactured gossip about female colleagues to deflect from his misbehavior, and that it was sometimes damaging to their careers.[…]
On June 29, 2017, Thrush and Haberman co-wrote a New York Times article referring to Trump’s “history of demeaning women for their age, appearance and mental capacity … disregard for civility when he made critical remarks on television and on social media, particularly about women.”
On Oct. 8, 2016, Thrush and co-author Katie Glueck, writing for Politico, declared that it was “fitting that the election of Hillary Clinton as the first female president might have been sealed by Donald Trump’s treatment of women as subordinate, interchangeable, pliable playthings” and said Trump’s “talk of sexually preying on women makes Romney’s ’47 percent’ tape seem like a high-minded Great Courses lecture.”