An Apology to Sarah Kuttner

I published something stupid last week under my magazine’s name, and I need to own that completely. One of my writers, Meltem, did a piece calling Sarah Kuttner a racist and stupid. The whole thing was built on scattered quotes from other people—Mola Adebski, Benjamin Bäumle—none of it actually from Sarah, all of it fragments and inference. I started getting angry emails and threats. At first I thought, well, I didn’t write it, Meltem did. Which is technically true. Which is also complete bullshit.

If I’m going to run a magazine, my name on the masthead means I’m responsible for what goes in it. I can’t hide behind the byline. I wanted to publish unafraid voices, and I did—but I should have made sure those voices were saying something true first.

Here’s what I actually think: you can dislike Sarah Kuttner’s work. You can find her boring or overrated. You can think she’s a bad person. That’s all legitimate. Criticism should cut. But there’s a difference between sharp and reckless. You can’t accuse someone of being a racist in public based on hearsay and fragments. The foundation had to be there, and it wasn’t.

I should have seen it. Not because it was too hard or too mean—provocation is fine. But because the foundation wasn’t there. The research was sloppy. The logic didn’t hold. I let something through that I shouldn’t have, and now I’m dealing with the fallout and rightfully so.

So the piece came down, and I’m saying it plainly: I’m sorry to Sarah Kuttner. Meltem learned something. I learned something. I want the work here to be sharp and unafraid, but it has to actually be built on something real. Provocation without substance is just noise. That’s not what I want to make anymore.