It Took Newsweek Three Days and a Staff Revolt to Apologize for Kamala Harris Birtherism Op-Ed

[brooklynite]

The Daily Beast

Editors and executives at Newsweek, a formerly prestigious and popular magazine that in recent years has suffered from self-inflicted wounds and even a criminal investigation of its business practices, are once again digging themselves out of a public relations hole.

Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Nancy Cooper and the magazine’s recently hired opinion editor, Trump-backing conservative activist and attorney Josh Hammer, apologized on Friday after nearly a week of defending a right-wing law professor’s op-ed questioning Sen. Kamala Harris’ U.S. citizenship and her eligibility to be Joe Biden’s running mate.

“This op-ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize,” read the editor’s note that replaced their earlier detailed defense of the op-ed. “[T]o many readers, the essay inevitably conveyed the ugly message that Senator Kamala Harris, a woman of color and the child of immigrants, was somehow not truly American.”

Cooper didn’t respond to email and text messages from The Daily Beast, with which Newsweek was partnered from 2010 to 2013 when IAC, The Daily Beast’s parent company, sold the money-losing magazine to IBT Media’s owners, Etienne Uzac and Johnathan Davis. The two entrepreneurs have a close and controversial financial connection to a charismatic South Korean evangelical minister named David Jang, touted by some of his followers as the messiah.