newsrooms

Masturbation At New York Times Alleged By Super-Friendly Copy Editor

Hamilton Nolan · 08/11/08 11:17AM

Let's just put it out there: copy editors are vaguely creepy. There they sit in their corner, poring over pages while all the reporters and (other) editors are doing the real, sexy work of journalism. What makes someone want to be a copy editor in the first place? Could it be... sexual perversion? (Kidding of course! We love copy editors, platonically). Charles Cretella, a veteran New York Times copy editor, is now going to court over a sexual harassment case that centers on-you guessed it-a fellow copy editor, who was masturbating at work. Goodness. The strange details: Cretella says the Times didn't give him a promotion because he was falsely charged with sexually harassing a new 33-year-old copy editor that Cretella was training. Very enthusiastically: