The Washington Post defended one of its White House reporters, Seung Min Kim, on Thursday after she became the target of “racist and sexist attacks” on Twitter.
“The racist and sexist attacks have been vicious — and typical. She and other minority women endure vile, baseless attacks on a daily basis, no matter what story they are working on or tweeting about. The attacks on her journalistic credibility were wildly misguided and a bad-faith effort at intimidation,” the Post’s national editor, Steven Ginsberg, said in a statement.
On Wednesday, a photo began circulating on Twitter of Kim showing an old tweet from Neera Tanden, the nominee for the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. According to Ginsberg, Kim had bumped into Murkowski in the Capitol and asked the senator about a 2017 tweet from Tanden, in which she criticized the senator for being “high on [her] own supply.”
Murkowski had not seen the tweet, Ginsberg said, so Kim showed it to her on her phone and included Murkowski’s reaction in the Post’s story about Tanden’s nomination. But the photo of Kim and Murkowski’s interaction led to a “flood of racist, sexist and ill-informed attacks aimed at Seung Min.”
“What she did was basic journalism. In reporting about Tanden’s tweet, she asked Murkowski for comment. Murkowski had not seen the tweet, so Seung Min showed it to her. This is standard practice. If a subject is not aware of the information they are being asked to comment on, reporters share it with them. This only makes sense and is the fair and responsible thing to do,” Ginsberg said.
“No one should have to deal with the hate that has been directed at Seung Min. She did her job, and she did it well, like she always does,” he added. “We could not be prouder that she is our colleague and a reporter for The Washington Post.”