A top editor in the United States resigned over a headline in connection with the George Floyd protests which have singed the country for more than 10 days.
Stan Wischnowski, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s senior vice president and executive editor said on Saturday that he was stepping down. His resignation came after an uproar over the ‘Buildings Matter, Too’ headline lamenting damage to businesses amid turbulent protests denouncing police brutality against people of colour.
The Inquirer had apologised for a “horribly wrong” decision to use the headline on a column Tuesday about looting and vandalism on the margins of protests.
In its apology piece, The Inquirer that the headline “offensively riffed” on the Black Lives Matter movement. It called the error unacceptable.
The note, however, said that the comparison between the loss of buildings and the lives of black Americans was not intended, and that the intent was ultimately irrelevant.
It further described the headline-writing process followed at the news organisation, and vowed to change it after the error.
The backlash came as The New York Times was widely criticised for publishing an opinion piece by US Senator Tom Cotton advocating the use of federal troops to quell the protests.
About 30 members of the Inquirer’s 210-member editorial staff called in sick earlier this week, and black staff members angrily condemned the headline.
The piece was written by architecture critic Inga Saffron, who worried that buildings damaged in violence over the past week could “leave a gaping hole in the heart of Philadelphia.”
The Inquirer drew fresh scorn after it replaced that headline online with one that read, “Black Lives Matter. Do Buildings?” Eventually, the newspaper settled on “Damaging buildings disproportionately hurt the people protesters are trying to uplift.”
Publisher and CEO Lisa Hughes said in a memo to staff that the headline was “offensive and inappropriate” and said the newspaper needed a more diverse workforce.
