The New York Times has ended its contract with romance columnist Olivia Waite after she reposted criticism of the newspaper's coverage of rape allegations against the president. The controversy began when the Times published a story regarding a House Judiciary Committee call to investigate Donald Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Independent journalists and former editors criticized the Times's report for omitting the word "rape" and not detailing the accusations against the president. Marisa Kabas, an independent journalist, contacted the Times for an explanation and shared the correspondence online. Mark Jacob, a former editor at the Chicago Tribune, reshared Kabas's post, calling the paper's justification for the omission "unacceptable."
Waite, a romance writer and columnist for the Times, then reshared this criticism on the social media platform Bluesky. According to Waite, she received an email from Tina Jordan, Book Review editor, stating that she was "no longer a good fit" for her column.
"Last Thursday on Bluesky I reposted two of Marisa Kabas’ criticisms of the NYT’s coverage of the new rape allegations against the president," Waite said in a statement. "On Friday the Times declined to continue my contract as a fiction columnist, via a one-paragraph email praising the quality of my work but citing my presumably negative feelings about the NYT as inferred from my Bluesky posts, which they admitted they have been monitoring."
Waite argued that romance writers often address topics of sex and rape, and that the public should not be detached when discussing real-life instances. She suggested that the paper's stance on journalistic objectivity involved not naming rape allegations when they applied to a sitting president, particularly before a national midterm election.
Waite stated she had "no regrets" and considered herself a critic. She also shared a post on Bluesky suggesting her termination was not a free speech issue, as the First Amendment applies to government restrictions on speech, not private companies like The New York Times.
The Times's report that initiated the situation detailed a demand from House Democrats for an independent special counsel to examine Trump's connections to Epstein. The committee aides' document alleged that the president "abused, assaulted, and even raped numerous women alongside, and in coordination with, the most infamous sex trafficker in history."
Waite has updated her social media bios to reflect her departure from the Times, describing herself as a "Romance fiction columnist emerita for the NYTBR" and a "Former columnist for the NYT Book Review."