Wall Street Journal Staff Faults Column on Race by Former Top Editor

The Journal said the move had been in the works before the I.A.P.E. union sent the letter. “Conversations about Gerry’s move to Opinion have been underway for some time,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “His new, expanded role will include podcasts and other projects.” Mr. Baker did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The I.A.P.E.’s letter was addressed to Matt Murray, Mr. Baker’s successor as editor in chief, and Almar Latour, who last month was named publisher of The Journal and the chief executive of its parent company, Dow Jones, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

The letter singled out a May 15 column by Mr. Baker headlined “The Often Distorted Reality of Hate Crime in America.” He led it with a description of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was shot while jogging in Georgia after he was pursued by white men, a killing that was captured on video.

The I.A.P.E. criticized the column, saying it “posits the highly controversial argument that black people commit more hate crimes than white people” and adding that to “‘prove’ that he uses only his own single weighted statistical calculation, with no attribution or context from experts either to support the idea or provide contrary views.” The letter also flagged several posts from Mr. Baker’s Twitter account that, it said, violated the paper’s social media policy.

The British-born, Oxford-educated Mr. Baker led The Journal at a time when its staff produced an award-winning investigation that exposed fraudulent claims by the health care tech company Theranos. On his watch, the paper was also at the forefront of reporting on payments involving President Trump and women who said they had once had sexual relationships with him.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/business/wall-street-journal-gerard-baker-editor.html