Former USA Today editor, respected journalist faced calls for firing for saying men couldn't get pregnant

A highly respected and long experienced veteran staffer for Gannett Media and USA Today said this week he was demoted and ultimately pushed out of the news organization after he asserted the scientific fact that only biological women can become pregnant.

David Mastio, a former deputy editorial page editor at USA Today, said in a detailed Twitter thread that he was “demoted for tweeting that women are the people who get pregnant,” a statement of fact which apparently created a firestorm among his fellow journalists.

He described the reaction as a “a braying mob of my colleagues” who then called for his termination.

“For this, I was demoted from Deputy Editorial Page Editor and initially threatened with a $30,000 a year pay cut,” he wrote. “A journalism institution that doesn’t share the same values and priorities as its red and purple state readers isn’t long for this world.”

Mastio, who also formerly served as a Gannett as an editorial writer and Deputy Editorial Page Editor for the Washington Times is now the Executive Editor of Straight Arrow News, which was launched last year by former Ameritrade online brokerage founder Joe Ricketts.

The site says it “has hired journalists from both liberal and conservative outlets” from both FOX News and CNN.

Mastio’s story is shedding light on Gannett’s internal practices, which he says is purging conservative voices from its editorial pages. 

He warned that many of the newspaper chain’s few remaining conservative editors and journalists have similarly been pushed out and that a new ‘diversity’ committee’ has been installed with the power to edit opinion pieces they deem inappropriate.

The landing page of the company’s corporate website is currently dominated with a large picture of a gay pride parade with the headline, “CELEBRATE PRIDE MONTH WITH GANNETT” in all capital letters.

On it’s About Us page, the company says, “Gannett supports a diverse, inclusive and equitable culture by offering opportunity for growth. We invest in our employees by providing resources and programs to empower personal and professional advancement.”

In a more extensive OpEd in the New York Post, Mastio expressed his solidarity with the equal rights for trans and non-binary people, explaining that his concerns were simply with how facts are now being viewed as opinion in our modern day society.

“Now, I have been an opinion journalist for 30 years — I thought I was authorized to have opinions. The idea that women are the ones who get pregnant has gone from scientific fact to opinion to outright falsehood in the blink of an eye. Nevertheless, it remains my opinion that women get pregnant. Women, after all, come with all the accoutrements — vaginas, uteruses, ovaries and mammary glands,” he said.

“Don’t misunderstand. I want nothing more than for trans and non-binary people to live free and fulfilling lives, work in peace and pursue happiness as they see fit. In my personal life, I love one of them.

“But the LGBTQ Employee Resource Group and the newsroom “diversity” committee thought I should be fired. That makes me worry. No, I don’t worry for me. I’ll be fine. I am a cis hetero white male with all the privilege that goes with it, as I have learned in my Gannett-mandated diversity training. To even complain on my behalf would be a microaggression, as I also learned in Gannett training.”

He also added a warning for Gannett readers—and shareholders.

“Gannett’s top editors and publishers are filling the company with a cadre of young college graduates who share a narrow “woke” ideology that is alien to the values of most of its readers. In a closely divided America, Gannett has a grand total of one local conservative staff columnist.

There’s one conservative editorial page left in the network. In recent years, I’ve watched good conservative editorial pages in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Oklahoma City wink out to be replaced with bland corporate liberalism. There are zero conservative editorial cartoonists left in the network.”