The Free Press Deletes Video In Which Reporter Is Scared Of The Word “Habibi”

Olivia Reingold might be the most notably embarrassing employee at the Free Press, but her coworkers won’t let her take that title without a fight. Last Wednesday, following the midterm elections, the outlet posted a video by a different staffer who characterized Abdul El-Sayed’s victory speech, which he gave almost entirely in English, as being delivered in Arabic. By Sunday, that video was deleted. The publication announced the decision, which apparently needed four days of deliberation, with the following note:

We deleted an opinion video about the use of foreign languages in election night speeches. The post contained a factual error and its tone fell short of what we believe advances healthy public discourse. The rigorous editorial process that produces the work that appears on our website and in our newsletters must apply to everything we post on social media. We’ll be updating how we do things to achieve just that. We regret the error.

The video in question was by reporter Maya Sulkin, whose accompanying caption was as follows: “Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed gave his victory speech in Arabic last night. Rep. Ilhan Omar addressed her victory party in Somali. And this morning, Iran’s supreme leader posted that America’s collapse ‘has accelerated.’ What should we make of these acceptance speeches?” The blue wave has resulted in some unlikely victories, but I didn’t know that included the supreme leader of Iran.