Leon Wieseltier Let Go From Magazine Over ‘Past Inappropriate Workplace Conduct’
Jewish intellectual Leon Wieseltier has been let go from his role in starting a new magazine after its ownership learned of “past inappropriate workplace conduct,” Politico reported Tuesday.
Wielseltier, the longtime literary editor of The New Republic magazine, had been working this year on launching a new publication for the Emerson Collective, a company owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs.
“Upon receiving information related to past inappropriate workplace conduct, Emerson Collective ended its business relationship with Leon Wieseltier, including a journal planned for publication under his editorial direction. The production and distribution of the journal has been ended,” the company said in a statement.
Wieseltier had been named on a document circulating through the media world, called “S—-ty Media Men,” which contains anonymous accusations against many prominent media figures.
Wieseltier released an apology in a statement. “For my offenses against some of my colleagues in the past I offer a shaken apology and ask for their forgiveness,” he said. “The women with whom I worked are smart and good people. I am ashamed to know that I made any of them feel demeaned and disrespected. I assure them that I will not waste this reckoning.”
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO