'Buildings Matter, Too': Top editor resigns over headline,
‘Buildings Matter, Too’: Top editor resigns over headline, as newspaper disavows its ‘riff’ on Black Lives Matter
Published: June 7, 2020 at 7:59 p.m. ET
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-lives-matter-buildings-matter-too-editor-loses-job-over-that-headline-2020-06-07
By Shawn Langlois
‘Buildings matter, too’
Those three words cost Stan Wischnowski, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s top editor, his job. The newsroom vet resigned after backlash from staff over that headline on a story that said “there could be a gaping hole in the heart of Philadelphia” amid protests over the killing of George Floyd.
Dozens of journalists signed an open letter to their editors explaining their decision to call out “sick and tired,” CNN reported. “They said they have spent ‘months and years’ trying to gain the public’s trust only to have it “eroded in an instant by careless, unempathetic decisions.”
The paper issued an apology the next day.
“The headline accompanied a story on the future of Philadelphia’s buildings and civic infrastructure in the aftermath of this week’s protests,” the Inquirer explained. “The headline offensively riffed on the Black Lives Matter movement and suggested an equivalence between the loss of buildings and the lives of black Americans. That is unacceptable.”
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