New Yorker Writer Fired After He Was Caught Masturbating On Zoom Call With Colleagues
Jeffrey Toobin, a veteran staff writer, had been suspended last month after news broke that he exposed his genitals on a work-related video call.
Jeffrey Toobin has been fired from his staff writing job at The New Yorker after he was caught masturbating during a Zoom call with colleagues who were preparing for coverage of the 2020 election.
Toobin tweeted the news of his firing on Wednesday, the same day Condé Nast sent out a memo to employees notifying them of Toobin’s departure, The Daily Beast reported. He is also a chief legal analyst at CNN, where he was placed on leave.
“I was fired today by @NewYorker after 27 years as a Staff Writer,” Toobin wrote. “I will always love the magazine, will miss my colleagues, and will look forward to reading their work.”
The company reportedly fired Toobin after an investigation.
“I want to assure everyone that we take workplace matters seriously. We are committed to fostering an environment where everyone feels respected and upholds our standards of conduct,” Stan Duncan, Condé Nast’s chief people officer, reportedly wrote in a memo.
Toobin’s actions were first reported by Vice last month with the headline, “New Yorker Suspends Jeffrey Toobin After Zoom Dick Incident.” That “incident” was initially described as Toobin exposing his genitals by mistake, with no further description as to what he was doing.
The phrase “Zoom dick” was a Twitter trending topic most of the day, and tongue-in-cheek jokes flooded social media feeds, as if it were a laughing matter and not an instance of blatant sexual misconduct.
Toobin, 60, initially apologized and claimed he didn’t know the camera was on — but that was before details surfaced that he was masturbating and believed he had “switched [from The New Yorker call] to a second call that was the video-call equivalent of phone sex,” according to two people familiar with the incident who spoke to The New York Times.
“I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers,” Toobin said in a statement on October 19. “I thought I had muted the Zoom video. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me.”
Toobin is also an author of several books, including “True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump,” and “The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson,” the latter of which was adapted for television as “The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story.”