As first reported by Vice in October, Toobin was participating in a Zoom call with coworkers from The New Yorker when several participants reportedly caught him . “I made an embarrassingly dumb mistake, believing that I was off-camera,” Toobin said in a statement at the moment. “I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers. I thought I was not observable on Zoom. I believed nobody on the Zoom call could visit me. I believed I had muted the Zoom video”
While talking with CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota on CNN Newsroom Thursday, Toobin offered a not-terribly-detailed explanation for what occurred.
“I did not believe I was on the telephone. I didn’t believe others could see me,” he stated, adding that he had spent”seven unhappy months” in the pursuit of”trying to be a much better man.” He said he began apologizing to his New Yorker coworkers, both publicly and privately, the identical day as the infamous call.
“I’ve got plenty to reconstruct,” he said, repeatedly noting his gratitude to CNN for keeping him on team,”but I feel very privileged and very lucky” to be in a position to achieve that.
When Camerota pressed why Toobin didn’t show better judgment throughout the telephone, he responded,”Since I did not have better judgment. Because I am a flawed human being who makes mistakes”
He added:”It was wrong, it was dumb and I’m attempting to be a better person.” And then he and Camerota discussed the news of the day, with Toobin apparently back to the task as analyst.In the immediate wake of his gaffe, Toobin took a leave of absence out of CNN. More than The New Yorker, where Toobin had functioned as a staff writer since 1993, that he had been initially suspended following the incident, then got fired in November after an internal investigation into the matter.
“I’m writing to share with you that our investigation regarding Jeffrey Toobin is complete, and consequently, he is no longer affiliated with our company,” read a memo by Stan Duncan, chief people officer at Condé Nast. “I want to assure everyone that we take workplace matters seriously. We are committed to fostering an environment in which everyone feels respected and upholds our standards of behavior.”
Toobin also addressed his New Yorker departure in a tweet in the time:”I was fired today by @NewYorker after 27 years as a Staff Writer. I’ll always love the magazine, will miss my colleagues, and will look forward to studying their work.”
Toobin’s book on the O. J. Simpson murder event served as the source material for FX’s limited series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which won nine Primetime Emmys in 2016.
