Did the Feminist Ministry of Propaganda Hijack Ellen Pao’s Firing to Change the Issue?
New York Times editor Margaret Sullivan addresses this issue in her July 18th commentary Did Reddit Boss Coverage Cross a Line? on how the nature of Ellen Pao’s firing quickly morphed into an act of sexism against a “strong woman,” which was not how the story first unfolded:
Some readers also objected to the sweeping changes in the story about Ms. Pao’s departure from the high-traffic site that sometimes calls itself “the front page of the Internet.” They complained that what was initially a neutral news story, which went online about 5 p.m. on July 10, morphed into an opinion piece a few hours later, with no explanation to readers. That version was what print readers saw on the front page the next morning.
And many readers disagreed with the implication of the story – that Ms. Pao was fired because of sexism rather than because she was a poor leader. The headline read: “It’s Silicon Valley 2, Ellen Pao 0: Fighter of Sexism is Out at Reddit.” (Ms. Pao lost a highly publicized sex discrimination lawsuit against a previous employer in March.)
Consider this timeline:
4/17/2015: Reddit CEO Ellen Pao bans salary negotiations
6/10/2015: Reddit bans 'Fat People Hate' and other subreddits under new harassment rules
7/2/15: Reddit is having a meltdown [over the firing of Victoria Taylor]
7/5/2015: Reddit users launch change.org petition calling for resignation of CEO Ellen Pao
7/10/2015: The New York Times runs multiple versions of Ellen Pao’s resignation story, each taking a more feminist bent.
7/16/2015: Ellen Pao writes editorial Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao: The trolls are winning the battle for the Internet
7/16/2015: Feminist Amanda Marcotte writes Ellen Pao came out against trolls so they came for her
When you look at the timeline, you see that if Ellen Pao’s firing was simply a Revenge Of the Trolls campaign as she professes, it would have happened back in June when she began banning hate speech.
But that’s not when it happened. The events that led to her firing didn’t start rolling till Victoria Taylor got fired. Ms. Taylor worked tirelessly with non-troll, mainstream Reddit users and it was they who led the charge that culminated in Pao’s resignation.
This shows the change.org petition that led to her firing had nothing to do with trolls and everything to do with her leadership. I signed the petition because of her hypocritically banning salary negotiations. Her shutting down “Fat People Hate” had nothing to do with it. I would argue most signers of the petition had reasons other than their “inability to troll” for signing the bill.
Just as Ellen Pao used sexual discrimination as an excuse for her lack of promotion at Kleiner Perkins, she again makes the same excuse for her lack of success at Reddit.
Ellen Pao is a feminist. That means nothing is ever her fault. The Feminist Ministry of Propaganda supports such assertions, even if they are untrue. That’s because Ellen Pao is useful as a feminist martyr, but useless as a feminist failure. Controlling the message is what it’s called and feminists do it wonderfully.
When you read how the tone of the June 10th NYT article changed over a few short hours, the answer to this posts title is obvious. Yes,the Feminist Ministry of Propaganda did hijack Ellen Pao’s firing to completely change the issue.
