At the age of 23, after graduating from Columbia University and working briefly for PBS, I went through 7 rounds of interviews and finally landed a job at the NYT as a news producer.
On my 3rd day on the job, on the graveyard shift which was from 5pm-2am I had to fill out some HR paperwork, so I went by the head of HR’s office (her name was Barbara) before 5pm to ask if I could fill it out and return it to her later or leave it on her desk.
She stared at me and said, and I quote verbatim: “How do I know you are not gonna leave a bomb under my desk?”
At the time I was so startled and shocked. I didn’t know how to react. But I happened to not be alone in the room, as she had already been meeting with the new young business reporter who was Jewish, and who had happened to also hear her offensive retort, and had a look on his face of complete confusion and horror.
To this day, I tried to believe that maybe she just had a bad sense of humor, but her tone and delivery was not that of someone who is making a joke, but of someone who wanted to prove some sort of point.
Horrified, I remember going to a mentor at the New York Times, who had once been one of my adjuncts at Columbia University and I told her something very horrible just happened to me and I didn’t want to tell her the details because I was so startled and worried for how it could potentially impact this new great gig that I had landed .
I will never forget what my mentor said to me who had been at the NYT for over a decade, she said, “Ahmed there are people here who will want you to succeed, and there are more people here who will want you to fail.”
Ultimately, I decided not to confront or report what the head of HR said at the time, as it was a very strange time given the Iraq war, and the climate in the newsroom was already very politically charged.
I share this experience now, in light of the misinformation being published by the New York Times, that is masquerading as journalism.
I only lasted six months at the #New_York_Times, and there are many reasons for that and while I have good friends who still work there, it is an indisputable fact that the #NYT is manufacturing consent for #genocide.