NY Times, Condé Nast union lawyers up after leaders’ anti-Israel tweets
The NewsGuild of New York, which represents journalists at The New York Times, Reuters and Condé Nast, has now hired an outside law firm to investigate tweets from a staff member who called Zionists “butchers” and “depraved monsters” on social media.
On a Wednesday call to discuss increased dues with members, representatives were instead inundated with questions about antisemitic posts by union leaders.
One reporter on the call asked why she and fellow journalists “were paying for staff that aren’t working for us.
“They’re working against us,” the unnamed reporter added, according to an audio recording reviewed by The Post. “Is there a mechanism to receive a refund for those fees [that paid union salaries]?”
Others on the call expressed anger that, in addition to paying union representatives making anti-Israel comments, they are also paying attorneys to investigate those reps.
The outside investigation was announced after The Post published an article highlighting the hateful comments on Tuesday.
Since The Post’s initial story, more controversial social media comments from Nastaran Mohit, organizing director of the NewsGuild of New York, have come to light.
In addition to tweeting comments like Zionists “know how to kill,” Mohit also posted last November that the 2023 New York Times Dealbook Summit — which hosted high-profile CEOs including Elon Musk and Disney’s Bob Iger — was giving time to “some of the world’s biggest criminals.”
The latter tweet has since been deleted.
Top labor attorney Benjamin Dictor, whose firm Eisner Dictor & Lamadrid received $448,910 from the NewsGuild last year according to public filings, posted as recently as June 5 that Israel has “genocidal intent.”
Dictor also posted a Times headline about women and children reported killed in Gaza with the comment “reported killed = murdered by Israel.”
While much of the anger about the comments began at The New York Times, it has boiled over to other publications the NewsGuild represents including Reuters and Condé Nast, The Post has learned.
The law firm of Cohen, Weiss and Simon — which has been retained to investigate the tweets — is expected to conclude an investigation in 30 days.
The NewsGuild said it is being done partly to see “if anything was taken out of context.”
But some journalists fear it won’t change anything.
“It’s obvious what’s happening,” one Times source told The Post. “The union is obviously hoping to bury this so they can continue to spend our money on their partisan political pet projects.“
The Post previously reported that Mohit — in response to a post from The New York Times celebrating winning a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the war in Gaza — said it was “utterly reprehensible” that the publication would be given an award.
Reposting a video in which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says, “Hamas cares nothing about the civilians,” Mohit added her own caption: “An objective lie, you bloodthirsty savage of a human being … rot in hell.”
The union-sanctioned antisemitism has turned internal newsroom politics at the Times into a slow-burning “dumpster fire,” an employee told The Post.
This comes as the NewsGuild is asking Times staffers to vote on a permanent increase in union dues, from 1.4% to 1.75%. Employees received paper ballots this week and are in the process of voting.
In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson for the Times said, “We don’t plan to comment on internal union matters.”
A spokesperson for the NewsGuild said, “This is an internal matter and we will not be sharing further comments.”
“Let’s give them credit for something. They’ve united the New York Times newsroom in opposition to their specific brand of liberalism,” the Times source said. “That’s got to be something.”
