So Jeffrey Toobin Had a Zoom Incident. What Now?

In the office, Mr. Toobin sat down in the hallway of Mr. Remnick, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book “Lenin’s Tomb” in 1994, and the two men got closer. Mr. Remnick, who succeeded Mrs. Brown four years later, ran the magazine out of a time of red ink and retained its prestige even when the sister titles had declined, failed, or folded. The New Yorker oversaw the reporting that is central to the national sexual misconduct discourse.

Since Condé Nast, editor of The New Yorker, along with other media organizations, has faced criticism of elitism and lateness in relation to diversity, there is little room for error even among his seasoned VIPs.

In June, Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport resigned after a picture of him in a brown face appeared on Instagram. The staff complained that people of color were not being compensated or treated fairly. Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue (and artistic director of Condé Nast), apologized on her website for the long marginalization of colored people. In recent years, writers have received contracts that contain morality clauses that allow dismissal for “public contempt, contempt, complaint or scandal”.

And the Zoom meeting wasn’t the first time Mr. Toobin surprised someone in business with his sexual advancement. Journalist Lisa DePaulo said Mr Toobin invited her for New Year’s Eve in 2003 and told her he broke up with Ms. McIntosh. A few days after she was accepted, she returned home to hear a phone call from Mr. Toobin in which he said, she said, vulgarly describing a sex act he was about to stage with her.

“I kept the message and played it to all of my friends,” she said. (One of them confirmed her story in an interview.) Mr. Toobin later called to confirm she had received his message – “someone usually takes me to dinner first,” she told him – and told her he was back with his wife.

“I didn’t think he was a sexual predator,” said Ms. DePaulo. “I just thought he was a nice guy who was perverted. It was just like, ‘Jeffrey? Ick! ‘

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