‘TOXIC’

‘She Is a Bully’: Editor of NYT’s High-End Mag Accused of Tyrannizing Staff

“[N]obody should have to be miserable to be in the cool kids club,” one ex-staffer said.

Staffers at T magazine, the monthly style supplement to The New York Times, have accused their editor-in-chief of creating a “toxic” work culture by expecting employees to work as relentlessly as she does. At least nine staffers have left the 30-person editorial team under Hanya Yanagihara, who is also the author of lauded novel A Little Life. “I don’t dare speak on or off the record about Hanya,” one former staffer told media newsletter Off the Record. Other current and former employees, all granted anonymity, shared frequent emails from Yanagihara demanding work during non-work hours. In one case, she threatened to cancel a weeklong holiday if deadlines for an upcoming issue weren’t met. “People don’t want to leave because T is a well-regarded, respected gig. But nobody should have to be miserable to be in the cool kids club,” one ex-staffer said. In a 2018 profile, Yanagihara reflected on #MeToo and said she had “managed to go 25 years without conflating sex with power, or bullying my colleagues.” Shown her comments, one ex-staffer said, “That’s insane. She is a bully.”