NYT receives complimentary phone calls after White House tweets out number

Journalists for The New York Times shared various praise they received on Friday following the publication’s decision to publish an op-ed written by an anonymous senior administration official earlier this week.

The pushback from Times’s staffers comes in response to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders urging Americans on Thursday to call the paper’s opinion desk to ask “who the gutless loser” is behind the op-ed that has rocked the Trump administration.

The Times described the anonymous author as a “senior official in the Trump administration.”

{mosads}“If you want to know who this gutless loser is, call the opinion desk of the failing NYT,” Sanders wrote on Twitter. “They are the only ones complicit in this deceitful act. We stand united together and fully support our President Donald J. Trump.”

For those of you asking for the identity of the anonymous coward: pic.twitter.com/RpWYPHa6To

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) September 6, 2018

Maggie Haberman, Sopan Deb and Dan Berry of the Times took to Twitter to say they received some praise instead of criticism from callers who explicitly said they were calling to counter Sanders’s tweet.

“Got four of these kinds of calls yesterday and one ‘eff you’ which [to be honest] is better than an average day’s ratio,” wrote Haberman, a White House correspondent for the paper.

Got four of these kinds of calls yesterday and one “eff you” which tbh is better than an average day’s ratio https://t.co/HogdLFp9uu

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 7, 2018

“Now for something different. Just got a call on my work line. ‘Hello, I’m looking for the opinion section. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told us to angrily call you. I am not angry. The New York Times is doing a great job,'” wrote Sopan Deb, a culture reporter for the paper. “I paused. Made me sad to tell her I wasn’t the right number.”

Now for something different. Just got a call on my work line.

“Hello, I’m looking for the opinion section. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told us to angrily call you. I am not angry. The New York Times is doing a great job.”

I paused. Made me sad to tell her I wasn’t the right number.

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) September 7, 2018

“Keep up the good work. You do have supporters out there. We love ya,” one woman said on Barry’s voicemail, adding that she didn’t know exactly where to call to leave the sentiment.

The number Sanders tweeted out reached an automated main line for the newspaper.

Responding to Sarah Sanders, a reader calls The New York Times: pic.twitter.com/p6id73T2H8

— Dan Barry (@DanBarryNYT) September 7, 2018

President Trump, Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo all slammed the Times for its decision to run the op-ed. 

Trump, who often calls the newspaper the “failing New York Times,” called the op-ed “treason” and demanded the newspaper reveal the individual’s identity while turning him or her over to the government for “national security purposes.”