Sarah Jeong is no longer part of The New York Times editorial board, an editor with the newspaper told CNN on Friday, with the writer maintaining that a tweet she sent this week was not a call for people to "unsubscribe" from the paper.

“Sarah decided to leave the editorial board in August,” deputy editorial page editor Kate Kingsbury told CNN on Friday. “But we’re glad to still have her journalism and insights around technology in our pages through her work as a contributor.”

Jeong is now serving as a "contracted contributor for NYT Opinion," CNN reported. The Times did not announce Jeong's departure from its editorial board in August.

The news regarding Jeong's status came hours after she raised eyebrows on Twitter over her response to a columnist for The Guardian who urged against people canceling their subscription to the Times.

ADVERTISEMENT

"I’m as frustrated with @nytimes as anyone. But an individual canceling a subscription does nothing. It’s self-indulgent. It’s not a movement or a boycott," wrote Guardian columnist Siva Vaidhyanathan, warning that "Even if it did matter it would hurt many great journalists like @nhannahjones @sarahjeong and @jbouie."

"You’re wrong. NYT does pay attention to subscriber cancellations," replied Jeong. "It’s one of the metrics for 'outrage' that they take to distinguish between 'real' outrage and superficial outrage. What subscribers say can back up dissenting views inside the paper about what it should do and be."

You’re wrong. NYT does pay attention to subscriber cancellations. It’s one of the metrics for “outrage” that they take to distinguish between “real” outrage and superficial outrage. What subscribers say can back up dissenting views inside the paper about what it should do and be. — sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) September 27, 2019

Jeong later told CNN that her tweet was not a "call to unsubscribe," saying, "I’m just weary of having my name and my work invoked as a reason to not boycott."

"A lot of people have done and continue to do great work at the Times. But if a reader has real, good-faith objections to certain editorial decisions, the fact that the paper has done great work doesn’t negate those objections," she added.

Jeong was hired by the Times in August 2018, but the newspaper soon received strong backlash after tweets emerged in which Jeong made racially insensitive comments.

“Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men,” Jeong said in one tweet from 2014 that has since been deleted.

“Dumbass f---ing white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants,” Jeong said in another tweet from that year.

A third tweet posted by Jeong in 2014 said, “Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.”

The Times said in a statement at the time that it stood by its decision to hire Jeong and had reviewed the writer's social media accounts prior to her hiring, while calling the content of the tweets "unacceptable."



"We hired Sarah Jeong because of the exceptional work she has done covering the internet and technology at a range of respected publications," the Times said.