That statement reads, to me, as unprofessional and petulant. What kind of editor makes a personal attack on a former colleague in a public setting in the name of a journalistic organization? It simply drives home to me the idea that it was the editors, not Greenwald, who are being petty dictators.
I guess how this whole debacle is received will probably depend on one's life experience.
Greenwald called them pathological, censorious, illiberal and equates editorial oversight with censorship. It's hardly petulant and unprofessional to suggest, in response, that he's behaving like a grown-ass dude throwing a tantrum.
He's also just published their recent correspondence. It doesn't make him look great either:
What is the difference between a “grown-ass dude throwing a tantrum” and a “grown-ass dude vociferously disagreeing with the ethics of his former employer”?
I’m not asking to make a point or take a side in this via a pretense of Socratic method, I’m asking to try understanding the motivations and intentions of how Greenwald is being depicted in terms of ‘throwing tantrums’ as a non-journalist fan of journalism.
I think that one's pretty straightforward. 'I completely disagree with your editorial direction' is disagreeing with your employer. 'Your editing is censorship and suppression of truths only I have gleaned' is throwing a tantrum.
I guess it I have a hard time understanding how one can read all of the presented material and come away with the impression Glenn Greenwald is the misrepresented party in some vigorous but rational and fact-based discussion.
Fair enough. I think I would say there's a lot of ugly happening in the whole of this story that doesn't sit right with me as a reader, but the characterization of Greenwald's position being "tantrum"-like seems to be something revealing in and of itself. Of what, I don't know if I can really say without spawning off an entire irrelevant thread of split hairs and doubling-down on definitions without ever coming back up for air, or returning to the source material for discussion.....
I don't think this is exactly a story full of heroes - a journalism outfit that burned a source (who is now serving time) vs its crank founder. I don't know how familiar you are with Greenwald's work over the years but the reason the tantrum and 'says anyone who disagrees with him is conspiring against him' charge still sticks is that it represents a long pattern of behaviour on his part. There are, like, twitter parody accounts about this!
If you want to compare this with a similar recent situation with an actual high-profile journalist and real high-profile story - Ronan Farrow and his former employer NBC are still bickering over whether NBC unethically spiked his MeToo reporting. I don't think at any point either side has emitted a Greenwald-style screed-de-coeur, despite the bitterness of the dispute.
Greenwald has a contractual right to a lack of editorial oversight and they pushed it anyway telling him certain things need to change concerning the content and who exactly is painted as corrupt before the story will be published.
As far as I can tell, the "tantrum" they allude to is better stated as 'exercising his contractual rights he negotiated as a founder for exactly these sorts of cases'.
I can't think of any reasonable reading of the statement (in which they directly say he's throwing a tantrum and why they think he is) that can be read as an allusion to a scare-quoted "tantrum" about a contract dispute. They don't put it in quotes, just straight up say it and their objections, whatever you think of them, are not about contracts.
I'm not sure how you can accuse me of both scare quoting, and actual quoting the same word at the same time.
And he has listed in his contract that he can publish without editorial oversight. The emails from the editor are very clearly are drawing a hard line that certain themes won't be publishable, in contrast to his contractual rights. Him taking offense to that is the basis for them claiming that he's having a "tantrum".
I guess how this whole debacle is received will probably depend on one's life experience.