Slate suspends podcast host Mike Pesca after internal debate over racial slur

In February 2021, the online publication Slate suspended a well-known podcast host, Mike Pesca, indefinitely without pay, after he argued during a debate with colleagues that non-Black people should be able to quote the n-word in some contexts.

Key Players

Slate is an online magazine and podcast network that offers analysis and commentary on politics, news, business, technology, and culture. On Feb. 15, 2021, staff members discussed the resignation of New York Times reporter Donald G. McNeil in a Slack channel dedicated to discussions of media industry news, according to screenshots obtained by Defector. The Times sanctioned McNeil for using a racial slur during a conversation about racist language while chaperoning high school students on a 2019 trip to Peru.

Mike Pesca was the host of the Slate daily podcast “The Gist,” who also contributed reporting and commentary to NPR. During the Slack discussion, Pesca, who is white, argued that “McNeil’s journalism made the Times more valuable to more Americans than having ousted him in 2019 would have,” according to Defector. After several of his colleagues pushed back, Pesca wrote, “My points are his internal conduct was in a grey area, you guys don’t think it was.”

Further Details

After exchanging several messages with his colleagues, Pesca wrote, “The question is: Is an out loud utterance of that word, in a work environment, fire-able, censurable, etc… Even as a point of clarification to a question exactly about the use of that word. I thought not necessarily.”

A few minutes later, Rachelle Hampton, a Black staff writer, joined the conversation. She wrote: “Feel like it’s weird that everyone’s dancing around the point that working in an environment where white people feel empowered to say the n-word in service of whatever argument they want to make is incredibly hostile for black people.”

The dialogue continued sporadically for a few hours before Pesca made his final point, arguing that the slur shouldn’t be used in “casual conversation” and that he was in no position to tell Black staff members that they “shouldn’t be worried it’s going to pop out of a colleague’s mouth at some point,” but that there are reasons why a non-Black journalist might use the word for the sake of accuracy or clarity. Slate’s chief executive, Dan Check, stepped in to shut down the discussion, “not because this topic is unimportant — but precisely because it is very important.”

Slate staffers, who spoke with Defector on condition of anonymity, expressed frustration and outrage at Pesca’s insistence on discussing the use of the slur. 

“I cannot believe I had to watch him enthusiastically provoke people on whether or not it is appropriate to use a racist slur,” one staffer said. Another told Defector, “I don’t want to be in a workplace where people feel emboldened to have this argument. People’s humanity is not an intellectual debate.”

The next day, Slate Editor-in-Chief Jared Hohlt posted a message saying he did not ever want to see a similar argument in Slack again.

“While we are a workplace where people argue about things all the time, it’s also a workplace where we must think very hard about the lived experience of colleagues whose experience is different than ours,” Hohlt wrote.

During a weekly all-edit meeting Feb. 19, 2021, Hohlt announced Pesca would be suspended for a week, according to Defector.

This was not the first time Pesca had explored the argument over the use of the slur. He  told the Times he used the slur in 2019 while recording an episode of “The Gist” about a Black security guard who was fired for using it. He said he did not face disciplinary action after the conclusion of a human resources investigation into that incident and that he had apologized to the producers involved. 

Slate employees told Defector that Pesca had also used the slur while reporting a story in 2019. Pesca told the Times he didn’t recall using the word a second time. After the podcast incident, Slate management emailed podcast hosts and producers to announce a new “sensitive language” policy requiring them to discuss the use of racist terms in a pending episode, whether quoted or not, before recording it, according to the Times.

Slate staffers described to Defector what they deemed to be a cultural problem that allowed Pesca to feel empowered to make an argument about the appropriateness of using the slur in the first place.

“There are people who enable him to be who he is at work,” one staffer told Defector. “The problem isn’t simply that Mike Pesca is intellectually lazy and racist. The biggest problem is that he is accountable to no one.”

Outcome 

Slate suspends Pesca without pay indefinitely

Pesca told the Times on Feb. 22 that he had been suspended indefinitely without pay. He said he was “heartsick” over hurting his colleagues, but added, “I hate the idea of things that are beyond debate and things that cannot be said.”

According to Defector, Check sent a memo to Slate staff members announcing Pesca’s suspension Feb. 21, referring only to a “conversation that took place in Slack last week.” “We can only do our best work when all employees feel heard, respected, and fully able to do our jobs,” Check wrote.

Slate spokesperson Katie Rayford told the Daily Beast the decision was made after staff raised “additional issues” following the argument in Slack.

“I can confirm this was not a decision based around making an isolated abstract argument in a Slack channel,” she said, according to The Hill. “After additional issues were raised by staff, we felt it was appropriate to take further action and indefinitely suspend the show pending an investigation.”

Jacob Weisberg, Slate’s former chairman and editor-in-chief, told The Times Pesca is “a huge talent and a fair-minded journalist.”

“I don’t think he did anything that merits discipline or consequences, and I think it’s an example of a kind of overreaction and a lack of judgment and perspective that is unfortunately spreading,” Weisberg said.

Joel Anderson, a Black staff member at Slate who hosted the third season of the podcast “Slow Burn,” shot back.

“For Black employees, it’s an extremely small ask to not hear that particular slur and not have debate about whether it’s OK for white employees to use that particular slur,” Anderson told the Times.