Awards buoyed former New York Times editor who mistreated freelance photographers

In fall 2017, the #MeToo movement exploded, prompting conversations across the newspaper about its treatment of women journalists. In December of that year, the Times held a meeting among foreign staffers to discuss just that topic. According to multiple sources, an HR representative as well as high-ranking newsroom figures, including then-International Editor Michael Slackman, participated. As the session was wrapping up, Rukmini Callimachi, who was then covering international terrorism, brought up Furst, prompting a rebuke from the HR official, who said that this wasn’t the forum to call out specific individuals. Carolyn Ryan, who had been promoted that year to oversee the Times’s talent recruitment, encouraged Callimachi to proceed. And so she did, reciting the story about the dinner remarks that Furst had reportedly made to Addario, and asking how someone with such attitudes could be orchestrating the paper’s coverage. Were women getting a fair number of high-profile assignments? Callimachi’s gesture, which was supported by her female colleagues, stirred more internal discussion of Furst’s behavior.