The popular Gimlet Media podcast, Reply All, was paused and its series, which addressed racism allegations by food magazine Bon Appétit, was discontinued after former Gimlet employees complained that one of its hosts and a reporter himself was becoming a toxic work culture had contributed.
On Thursday, co-host Alex Goldman announced to the audience in a two-minute statement posted on the Reply All feed entitled “A Message from the Staff From“ Reply All ”” that senior reporter Sruthi Pinnamaneni and Co -host PJ Vogt had decided to leave the podcast. Last week, former colleagues accused them of opposing union efforts that many black workers believed necessary to increase diversity and create an equal workplace.
“Former colleagues of ours at Gimlet have publicly described several cases of worrying behavior from both Sruthi and my longtime co-host PJ Vogt,” Goldman said in the statement released Thursday. “These reports prompted our team to settle the work culture at ‘Reply All’ and ask us whether we could continue broadcasting the story without asking ourselves and what was going on at Gimlet. We now understand that we should never have released the series as reported, and the fact that we did was a systematic editorial error. “
On Twitter and in interviews last week, former Gimlet employees said they viewed Mr. Vogt and Ms. Pinnamaneni’s involvement in the “Test Kitchen” series as hypocritical.
Eric Eddings, a former Gimlet employee who co-hosted The Nod podcast, said he couldn’t believe Ms. Pinnamaneni was telling a series about racism and toxicity in the workplace when she and Mr. Vogt asked for a “nearly identical” atmosphere at Gimlet was responsible.
Mr Vogt and Mrs Pinnamaneni publicly apologized after the allegations surfaced. They didn’t respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
Mr. Goldman said the remaining two episodes of “Test Kitchen,” which were supposed to be a four-part series, would not be released. He apologized to the audience for “our many mistakes”.
“We apologize to our colleagues and our former colleagues who we hurt,” he said. “We are sorry for you, our listeners. And of course we apologize to the people who spoke to us for the ‘test kitchen’ and told us their extremely personal stories. “
The two previously published episodes of “Test Kitchen” would stay online, Goldman said with an additional disclaimer. “Reply to All” would be interrupted, he said, as the show staff assessed what had gone wrong. “Once we fully understand it ourselves, we want to tell you as best we can what happened,” said Goldman.
A spokesman for Spotify, which acquired Gimlet Media in February 2019, said Mr. Vogt and Ms. Pinnamaneni would stay with Gimlet despite not being on the podcast. He didn’t give any details about her new roles.
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Vogt started with “Reply All” in 2014 and adapted it from their previous WNYC radio show “TLDR” (too long; not read). Episodes in recent years have taken listeners to phone scam rings in India and on a journey to track down a Song that a director heard on the radio as a teenager.
Mr Eddings and other former Gimlet employees said that Mr Vogt and Ms. Pinnamaneni were firmly opposed to union efforts, which were seen by black workers as the only way to create an environment in which they could thrive and that the two were theirs Efforts declined to diversify the staff. In one case, according to Mr. Eddings, Mr. Vogt sent derogatory text messages to a Gimlet employee who was involved in the union effort that left the employee in tears.
On the second installment in the Test Kitchen series that Ms. Pinnamaneni recounts, Ms. Pinnamaneni said that Gimlet had “its own version” of the problems Bon Appétit was facing.
“The white people who ran the place hired people of color and promised them changes that never seemed to fully materialize,” she said later. When a group of employees tried to change the atmosphere in Gimlet through union formation, they chose not to join the effort, she said. “As I’ve talked about it, I’ve talked about the way your fight got on my toes.” She said it took her eight months to report on Bon Appétit to realize how wrong she was.
In a series of tweets on Thursday, Mr Goldman said the announcement did not end “Reply All”.
“We’re just finding out what’s next,” he wrote. “‘Answer All’ wasn’t and is not just Alex and PJ. There’s an insanely talented group of people doing this show.”
