New York Times editorial page editor, James Bennet, stepped down from his role at the legacy paper Sunday following Bennet’s controversial position to publish a well-reasoned op-ed from a sitting U.S. senator.
“Last week we saw a significant breakdown in our editing process, not the first we’ve experienced in recent years,” the paper’s Publisher A.G. Sulzberger wrote to staff Sunday, according to the Times.
That breakdown featured an editorial penned by Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, also a combat veteran, urging the president to “send in the troops” Wednesday to quell anarchic riots that rocked the nation in the worst outbreak of civil unrest not seen in decades.
On Thursday, Bennet defended the paper’s decision to move forward with the op-ed on Twitter in the wake of colleagues airing their outrage publicly tweeting “Running this puts Black @nytimes staffers in danger.”
“Times Opinion owes it to our readers to show them counter-arguments, particularly those made by people in a position to set policy,” Bennet wrote. “We understand that many readers find Senator Cotton’s argument painful, even dangerous. We believe that is one reason it requires public scrutiny and debate.”
https://twitter.com/JBennet/status/1268328283646521344?s=20
The next day however, the Times predictably caved to outrage circus led by its own staff, pinning an editor’s note on Cotton’s piece stating its regrets.
“We have concluded that the essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published,” Times editors wrote.
Never mind that, without apology, the Times in the past has published opinion pieces pimping pedophilia, promoting Hitler, peddling Putin’s propaganda, publishing the Taliban, promoting the Turkish dictator, praising Mao Zedong, and questioning interracial friendship.
Cotton’s plea to send in federal troops to restore law and order meanwhile, enjoys the support of 58 percent of voters, according to a Morning Consult poll.
But after several days of outrage from an inner Left-wing insurgency that felt somehow threatened by the paper running an editorial running counter to their narrative, Bennet now stands cancelled. Jim Dao, who took public responsibility for the editing of Cotton’s piece has also been reassigned.
