Earlier today Cristina Laila reported—
CNN legal analyst and writer Jeffrey Toobin was suspended by The New Yorker for exposing his penis during a Zoom call with his fellow magazine colleagues.
Toobin told Vice in a statement: “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers.”
A spokeswoman for The New Yorker said, “Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended while we investigate the matter.”
Toobin later apologized to family, friends and co-workers.
VICE News posted an update later today — Toobin was masturbating on a Zoom call.
The New Yorker has suspended reporter Jeffrey Toobin for masturbating on a Zoom video chat between members of the New Yorker and WNYC radio last week. Toobin says he did not realize his video was on.
“I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers,” Toobin told Motherboard.
“I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video,” he added.
Two people who were on the call told VICE separately that the call was an election simulation featuring many of the New Yorker’s biggest stars: Jane Mayer was playing establishment Republicans; Evan Osnos was Joe Biden, Jelani Cobb was establishment Democrats, Masha Gessen played Donald Trump, Andrew Marantz was the far right, Sue Halpern was left wing democrats, Dexter Filkins was the military, and Jeffrey Toobin playing the courts. There were also a handful of other producers on the call from the New Yorker and WNYC.
Both people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, noted that it was unclear how much each person saw, but both said that they saw Toobin jerking off.
I did it, I made the first funny New Yorker cartoon pic.twitter.com/mktr4xCm18
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 19, 2020
