The New York Times: No Place For Tolerance
If I were a betting person I’d wager she’s getting ready to sue.
I’m talking about Bari Weiss, the New York Times columnist and editor who made national news yesterday with her blistering resignation letter.
Weiss joined The Times after the 2016 election when the editors of that paper were caught flat-footed by Donald Trump’s victory and realized they were out of touch with the world beyond New York’s liberal bubble.
Her mission, she says, was to bring diverse views to the pages of The Times. A Sisyphean task.
Weiss lasted three years. She’s out now and isn’t going back. This brave woman nuked that bridge.
Her savage letter to publisher A. G. Sulzberger accused The Times of creating a hostile work environment where conservative voices and supporters of Israel are stifled and subject to mockery. Worse, she accused the publisher of routinely caving to the “mob.” She said the paper is a place where Twitter replaces editorial judgment.
Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space.
Ouch. That’s got to hurt.
The letter, which she posted on her webpage, was raw and brutal. It also rang true.
During her years at The Times, Weiss said she was bullied by woke colleagues who were antagonistic to more conservative voices.
“They’ve called me a Nazi and racist,” she said, adding that colleagues who dared be friendly to her were “badgered by co-workers.” She claimed that other Times employees, “publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action.”
She pointedly accused Sulzberger of complacency during her mistreatment.
“I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage. Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery,” Weiss wrote. “Part of me wishes I could say that my experience was unique. But the truth is that intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times.”
Anyone who reads The Times can see that it has sunk into unyielding left-wing orthodoxy. When diverse points of view are permitted - such as that of Sen. Tom Cotton, who wrote a June 3 op-ed for the paper suggesting that troops could be used to quell rioting - a near “civil war” broke out at the newspaper, according to Weiss. About 1,000 Times staffers signed a letter objecting to Cotton’s piece. The opinion editor resigned over the incident.
The Times - which earlier in the year published an op-ed from the deputy leader of the Taliban and once published a compassionate piece about pedophilia - said Cotton’s column did not meet The Times’ standards and apologized for publishing it.
That was a mistake.
But allowing a smart writer such as Ms. Weiss to be harassed at work for her centrist point of view may turn out to be an even bigger blunder.
If Weiss lawyers up and heads to court, it’s hard to see how she loses.
Read the Weiss letter here. Every word of it.
Yep, American newspapers are even worse than you thought they were.
