It's not me doing any of it! I don't write the stories, I don't assign the stories, I don't design the stories, I don't take the photographs, I don't edit the stories. “f your central question is ‘Gosh how does Choire Sicha make the Style section so magical?’ Then the answer is. Sicha declined to comment for this story but in an interview last year with Study Hall, he acknowledged that he had taken a fairly hands-off approach to the section, and much of the section’s success could be attributed to its rank-and-file staff. during a 2019 Times-led student trip to Peru. Some masthead editors were irked, for example, when they saw Sicha’s signature on protest letters involving internal Times matters, including a note from staff critical of racist comments made by former reporter Donald McNeil Jr. Others also said Sicha seemed out-of-step with Times leadership. To some senior editors, Sicha’s management style was viewed as what Times insiders described as, at best, “hands-off” and, at worst, “absentee”-a creative editor well-liked by his crew of writers, but seen as averse to the difficult conflicts or the intrapersonal headaches that may come with running one of the paper’s highest-profile sections. The open-mindedness and creativity paid dividends: The section was widely praised as one of the Times’ most innovative, playful, and fun.īut multiple insiders who spoke with The Daily Beast said that, in recent months, some friction had grown between management and Sicha. Sicha allowed his team broad freedom to pursue story ideas that may not have run under previous Styles editors one Times staffer said it was rare to see him shoot down pitches.
Since taking the helm of the section in 2017, Sicha-a former Gawker editor and co-founder of The Awl-turned the Styles section into something weirder, more playful, and more engaged with how online life informs and defines cultural trends.īeyond its traditional focus on fashion, the section published lighthearted takes on how the pandemic has affected urban rat populations and the people who suspect they live in haunted houses and expanded its coverage of the changing lives, ideas, and culture of young people in America. “As our most senior leaders have made clear, there is no one better suited than Choire, an innovative thinker and a naturally entrepreneurial editor, to help build on our newsletter portfolio and showcase new voices in ways that meaningfully expand and evolve Times journalism.” We realized that newsletters offer us big opportunities and key to those ambitions is having expert newsroom leadership. Choire is a superb journalist and a treasured colleague who has mentored journalists on the Styles desk and across the newsroom. The friction is also part of the paper’s continued struggle to reconcile the buttoned-up impulses of its old guard and its newer, less traditional, digital-native staff.Ī spokesperson for The Times said in a statement: “You've heard a lot of false and misleading rumors. Six insiders at the publication suggested to The Daily Beast that Sicha’s transfer was the result of both masthead-level dissatisfaction with Sicha’s management style-including his handling of some of the paper’s higher-profile reporters-and a bit of discontent with the gig on the part of the now-former Styles editor himself. The move also took many by surprise, as some Styles employees only learned that it was Sicha’s last day on the team from a tweet posted by NBC News media reporter Dylan Byers.
He left a job previously described by the Times leadership as “one of the most important features jobs in American journalism” for a newsletter position-a sign some took as a demotion.
Choire Sicha’s sudden departure as The New York Times’ Styles section editor shocked many at the paper.
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