GRAY LADY LIKES ’EM YOUNG
So says suit by veteran journalist accusing New York Times of age discrimination and other wrongs
By JB Nicholas
A freelance photojournalist has accused the New York Times of not making him a staff photographer because he was too old.
The accusation comes in a lawsuit filed last month in Manhattan federal court by Robert Stolarik, 47. His 23-page complaint names several current and former members of the Times’ photography department in an age-biased scheme of employment discrimination.
The scheme, the suit says, was dictated by Michelle McNally, director of the photo department, who is personally named by the suit as a defendant, along with the Times itself. According to the suit, McNally would only hire young photographers that McNally could mold — an allegation supported by a list of 20-somethings the Times hired during her tenure.
The suit also accuses the Times of refusing to employ Stolarik even on a freelance basis him after he was falsely arrested covering the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program, while on assignment for the newspaper; and of wage theft, by wrongfully classifying him under federal wage laws as an independent contractor instead of an employee, denying him benefits and overtime pay.
The allegations shine an unflattering spotlight on internal Times operations, as well as the exploitation of freelance employees as full-time workers while denying them the wages and benefits due staff employees.
Both the New York Daily News and the New York Post, like the Times, rely heavily on a freelance workforce to augment their staff journalists, but both the News and the Post do it without the age bias alleged to exist at the Times, based on a review of their photographers, many of whom are over 40, some over 50, and at least three who are over 60.
Stolarik worked for the Times for 14 years. He started out for the newspaper covering conflict in South America. Then, in 2002, he returned to New York and kept working for the newspaper covering crimes, fires, catastrophes and protests — what newspaper people call the “Police Beat.”
Covering the police beat is dirty, demanding work, typically set in motion by a late-night telephone call from an anxious photo editor hoping you’ll drop whatever you’re doing and rush to a far-flung corner of the city to take photographs of blood, bodies, bulletholes, grief-stricken survivors and cops. A few fires from time-to-time. It’s not an easy, pretty life.
What makes life covering the police beat even tougher is the fact that the police beat sometimes beats back.
For example, while covering the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, Stolarik was tackled and wrongfully arrested by police; while covering the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, he was beaten by police with a riot stick; and while covering Occupy Wall Street protests in New York police shoved him down a flight of stairs and blocked his camera lens, more than once.
Still, Stolarik says, in his 14 years at the Times more than 30 of his images were published on the paper’s front-page. One of his photographs, according to the suit, hangs in Times’ headquarters, “alongside photographs taken by award-winning Times’ staff photographers.”
Outside the hallowed halls of the Times’ $850 million, Renzo Piano-designed headquarters, Stolarik is perhaps best known for his work during Occupy Wall Street.
On the protest’s third day, the commanding officer of the local precinct, Lt. Edward Winski, hurdled a police barricade and arrested a protester. When a police spokesman falsely claimed the protester had jumped the barricade, the Times ran a slideshow of Stolarik’s images that indisputably showed the truth: it was the police who had jumped the barricade, not the protester.
The episode undermined the NYPD’s usual tactics for squelching protests — force and lies — and Occupy Wall Street grew.
Notwithstanding Stolarik’s skill and success, several current and former members of the Times’ photography department told him he was too old to be made a staff photographer, he alleges.
In 2006, his lawsuit says, Times photo editor Patrick Witty wanted to make Stolarik a staff photographer. To accomplish that, Witty wanted to recommend him for the Joop Swart Masterclass organized by World Press Photo. Successful completion of the the class was considered a pathway to a Times’ staff job, Stolarik says. After the class, Witty told Stolarik, he would ask McNally to make him a staff photographer.
Before that happened, however, Witty emailed Stolarik and asked: “robert, how old are you? under 30?,” according to the lawsuit. When Stolarik answered 37, Witty replied “too bad,” the lawsuit says.
Today, Witty is the Deputy Director of Photography at National Geographic. He ignored two requests for comment — an email and a direct message sent to a verified social media account.
According to its website, the Joop Swart Masterclass is intended for “young, promising photographers.”
David Campbell, Director of Communications for World Press Photo, confirmed that the class is only open to those under 32. He also confirmed that Stolarik was never nominated for the class.
When ask to comment on the role of the Joop Swart Masterclass in screening prospective talent for the Times, possibly with age-discriminatory effect, Campbell said: “As an organisation, our values are clear — we are opposed to discrimination or harassment against anyone on the basis of age, gender, race or ethnic origin, religion, or sexual orientation.”
Campbell added, “We know many organisations around the world pay attention to those selected. How they pay attention is nonetheless a matter for those organisations.”
Another editor in the Times’ photography department is named in Stolarik’s lawsuit: James Estrin, co-founder of the popular Times’ Lens Blog. Estrin told Stolarik, on “several occasions,” that he “was ‘too old’ to be considered for a staff position,” according to the lawsuit.
The bias against Stolarik, he says, came straight from the top — McNally herself.
Maura Foley is currently the Times’ national photography editor. Foley told Stolarik he did great work, the suit says, but that McNally would only hire “new, younger photographers that McNally could develop.”
According to the suit, in 2006 the Times hired Josh Haner, then 26, as a staff photographer; in 2014 the Times hired Leslye Davis, 24, as a staff photographer and videographer; and in 2015 the Times hired Ben Solomon, 29, as a staff photographer and videographer.
The lawsuit also alleges that the Times hired Al Drago, 23, as a staff photographer in 2016. However, Drago says he “was never hired as a staff photographer by the Times. I was an intern in Washington and now am just a freelancer.”
After Haner was hired, Stolarik says, Times’ bosses added insult to injury by instructing Stolarik to baby-sit their boy wonder: “Plaintiff was told by several editors that he needed to ‘watch over’ Haner when he was ‘out on the street’ covering his first assignment.”
Then, in 2014, the Times sent Stolarik to the Bronx to report on the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program — before popular opposition to the tactic curtailed its use. Stolarik was with Times’ reporters when a police officer directed him to stop taking photographs of police action.
A second police officer slammed Stolarik’s camera into his face and threw him to the ground.
Stolarik was arrested and charged with obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest. The charges against Stolarik were dismissed. Then, one of the police officers who arrested Stolarik, Michael Ackermann, was charged with a felony for falsifying paperwork justifying the wrongful arrest. Ackermann was convicted in 2015.
Nevertheless, the Times’ decided that Stolarik could no longer cover the police, and McNally personally removed Stolarik “from the police beat,” he alleges, effectively ending his career.
The suit seeks $500,000 in damages and an order requiring the Times to hire Stolarik as a staff photographer, or pay what he would have made had he been hired.
A spokesperson for the Times, Danielle Rhoades Ha, denies Stolarik’s allegations: “We are confident the claims are unfounded and intend to vigorously defend the case.”
JB Nicholas is an independent investigative reporter and photojournalist based in New York City. His work is regularly published in the Daily Beast, the Village Voice and Gothamist.
NOTE: The original text of this report stated that Al Drago was hired as a staff photographer in 2016, an allegation made in Stolarik’s complaint. After this report was published, Drago clarified that he was an intern, and now works as a freelancer.
The World Press Photo organization responded to inquires after this report was published. The insight of the organization’s Director of Communications, David Campbell, was nonetheless incorporated in the interest of clarity and fairness.
