This story looks suspiciously similar to what happened at the New York Times after they decided to run that op-ed from Tom Cotton. Only this time, the tale is playing out a bit to the south in the City of Brotherly Love. It was revealed this weekend that the Pulitzer Prize-winning Executive Editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer was resigning over yet another “mistake” in the form of the decision to run an offensive article by a similarly prize-winning reporter. Stan Wischnowski was thanked for his many years of service to the paper, but his resignation in the wake of this tragic mistake was accepted nonetheless. (Inquirer.com)

Stan Wischnowski, the top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, has announced his resignation, days after discontent among the newspaper’s staff erupted over a headline on a column about the impact of the civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Wischnowski, 58, led the paper over two turbulent periods in recent years, driving it; its sister paper, the Daily News; and its website, Inquirer.com, to reshape themselves as the digital age transformed the news business.

Wischnowski will be out the door on Friday and the search is on for a replacement “who embodies our values, embraces our shared strategy, and understands the diversity of the communities we serve.” Ouch. He must have pulled a really bonehead maneuver here, eh? I suppose we’d better find out what he did that was so bad.

As it happens, Wischnowski approved the publication of an article about the recent riots written by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Inga Saffron. The article, originally titled “Buildings Matter Too,” sent shockwaves through the newsroom. (For the record, Saffron is the newspaper’s architecture critic.) More than 40 reporters decided to “call in sick and tired” over the decision and it led Jenice Armstrong, a female, African-American reporter, to pen a scathing rebuttal. In it, she vented about how she is paid less than most of her colleagues and how Black reporters and editors are underrepresented at the paper.

So what was so horrible about Saffron’s article? She was pointing out that the destruction of businesses in the city negatively impacts communities of color more than anyone else and such actions are counterproductive to the cause. Really controversial stuff, eh? Or maybe it was just the title. The paper later edited it to read, “Damaging buildings disproportionately hurt the people protesters are trying to uplift.” But the more easily offended took the original title as some sort of attack on “Black Lives Matter,” despite the fact that the contents of the article said pretty much exactly what the new title conveyed. Is it really that shocking to think that the architecture critic talking about how “buildings matter” would seem rather normal to everyone else?

But none of that came up for discussion. The paper issued a rapid apology for their supposed lack of sensitivity, leading to the Executive Editor’s decision to cut his career short. The original author of the offending piece, Ms. Saffron, is apparently still on the payroll.

So that’s apparently all it takes to topple an editor these days. Reporters can all engage in some sort of walkout and trash the paper’s management on social media. In an era where publishers are laying off journalists in record numbers, you’d suspect that most of them would be a bit more careful about how they handled such issues. If the newspaper had chosen to publish something truly racist or offensive, that would be one thing. But Saffron’s article fully supported the rights and objectives of the legitimate protesters. She was simply pointing out that burning down communities of color wasn’t a particularly productive use of anyone’s time.

And for that, somebody’s head had to roll. It turned out to be the Executive Editor. Welcome to the woke world of 2020.