While Republicans across the US celebrate Donald Trump’s victory and eagerly await his return to the White House, those that backed the wrong horse appear to be struggling to come to terms with it. Mr S is still waiting to hear whether certain lefty celebrities are going to follow through with their plans to leave the country over the result, and a number of pundits are still recovering from their fantastically inaccurate predictions about the race. But we should also spare a thought for some of those hit hardest by the announcement: Guardian journalists.
It now transpires that the newspaper has reached out to its employees to offer, er, Trump therapy. In a company-wide email, editor Katharine Viner sympathised with staffers saddened by the outcome of the ‘dramatic night’. Assuring journalists she knows ‘the result has been very upsetting for many colleagues’, Viner has encouraged UK workers to contact their American counterparts – as ‘they will be most directly affected by the result’. Going on the Grauniad editor gushed:
If you’re not in the US, do contact your American colleagues to offer your support… It’s upsetting for many others, too. If you want to talk about it, your manager and members of the leadership team are all available, as the People team. There is also free access to free support services, which I’ve outlined at the end of this email.
How sweet. Not that the newspaper has taken well to being quizzed on the matter. A Guardian spokesperson remarked today that Viner’s Trump therapy scheme ‘is actually our employee assistance programme’, adding: ‘[This is] a function that any responsible international media organisation has available for staff at all times.’ Shots fired!
It comes after Viner took a slightly tougher tone in a Guardian editorial on Wednesday, in which she wrote that the election result was an ‘extraordinary, devastating moment in the history of the United States’, adding: ‘It’s time for us to redouble our efforts to hold the president-elect and those who surround him to account.’ That’s all very well – though Mr S can’t imagine crying about it will help further their cause all that much…
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