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Variety

What Netflix’s Communications Chief Said That Got Him Fired After Being With the Company Seven Years

Jun 22, 2018  •  Post A Comment

Netflix’s Chief Communications Officer Jonathan Friedland was fired Friday by the company CEO Reed Hastings, Variety’s Janko Roettgers reports. Friedland had been with Netflix for seven years.

The article reprints a memo, sent to Netflix employees Friday by Hastings, explaining the firing. Here’s how it reads, in part:

All:

I’ve made a decision to let go of Jonathan Friedland. Jonathan contributed greatly in many areas, but his descriptive use of the N-word on at least two occasions at work showed unacceptably low racial awareness and sensitivity, and is not in line with our values as a company.

The first incident was several months ago in a PR meeting about sensitive words. Several people afterwards told him how inappropriate and hurtful his use of the N-word was, and Jonathan apologised to those that had been in the meeting. We hoped this was an awful anomaly never to be repeated.

Three months later he spoke to a meeting of our Black Employees @ Netflix group and did not bring it up, which was understood by many in the meeting to mean he didn’t care and didn’t accept accountability for his words.

The second incident, which I only heard about this week, was a few days after the first incident; this time Jonathan said the N-word again to two of our Black employees in HR who were trying to help him deal with the original offense. The second incident confirmed a deep lack of understanding, and convinced me to let Jonathan go now.

As I reflect on this, at this first incident, I should have done more to use it as a learning moment for everyone at Netflix about how painful and ugly that word is, and that it should not be used. I realize that my privilege has made me intellectualize or otherwise minimize race issues like this. I need to set a better example by learning and listening more so I can be the leader we need.

To read the rest of Hastings’ memo, please click here, which will take you to the original Variety article.

3 Comments

  1. Is everyone on drugs or have we just made too many entitled white men? If you can’t be great, you are not better by blaming others. Fire away.

  2. Trump’s America. He’s convinced white people that they can say and do just about anything with zero consequences. Well you can’t. So just stop or end up unemployable like this ahole.

  3. What about Freedom of Speech? Everything is different for a white man. Joy Reid did not lose her job. Interesting.

    I do not condone this person’s behavior either. Idiot.

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