Donald McNeil has worked for The Times since 1976, specializing in coverage of plagues and pestilences.
The New York Times on Thursday said it investigated and "disciplined" the newspaper's most prominent science and health reporter, Donald McNeil Jr., over inappropriate comments he allegedly made while accompanying students on a trip to Peru in 2019.
In a statement first given to The Daily Beast, The Times acknowledged students that complained about McNeil after the trip, which is part of the newspaper's educational travel program for middle and high school students. McNeil had gone along as an expert.
"We subsequently became aware of complaints by some of the students on the trip concerning certain statements Donald had made during the trip," a Times spokesperson told The Washington Post, without specifying how much time had passed since the trip. "We conducted a thorough investigation and disciplined Donald for statements and language that had been inappropriate and inconsistent with our values."
The statement said McNeil "had used bad judgment by repeating a racist slur in the context of a conversation about racist language." At least two students had accused him of racist and sexist remarks, including using the n-word, according to the Daily Beast report.
"Don't believe everything you read," McNeil said in an email to The Post on Thursday, with no further elaboration.
McNeil has worked for The Times since 1976, specializing in coverage of plagues and pestilences. His coverage of the coronavirus pandemic over the past year raised his profile to new heights, and he has made several appearances on the publication's popular podcast "The Daily."
According to The Daily Beast, McNeil's coverage of the raging pandemic has been submitted for consideration for a Pulitzer Prize.
In September, New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet called McNeil "a determined and ambitious reporter who doesn't stop till he finds the truth." Baquet made the statement when the Columbia University journalism school gave the reporter the 2020 John Chancellor Award.
Many journalists expressed shock or anger on social media as news of the complaints circulated Thursday, including some of McNeil's colleagues. "I'm sorry, but I am just speechless," business investigations editor David Enrich wrote on Twitter.
In May, a spokeswoman for The Times said McNeil "went too far" when he said in a television interview that Robert Redfield, who was the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "should resign" over the agency's response to the coronavirus pandemic. "His editors have discussed the issue with him to reiterate that his job is to report the facts and not to offer his own opinions," the spokeswoman said at the time. "We are confident that his reporting on science and medicine for The Times has been scrupulously fair and accurate."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)