Memo: NY Times Editor Explains Why Everyone Hates His ‘Rich And Searching’ Op-Ed Section

In a long memo to his staff, New York Times editor James Bennet defended his embattled editorial page against its many, many critics, writing that “in our time, we owe our readers an honest struggle over the right paths ahead, not a pretense that we’re in possession of God’s own map.” The New York Times opinion section is not bad, he argued. In fact, it is good.

Bennet has had a difficult week. First, one of his hires, Bari Weiss, sparked outrage when she referred to the California-born Olympic skater Mirai Nagasu as an immigrant. This occasioned a heated internal conversation in which staffers vented about the direction of Bennet’s section, as HuffPost reported. This was the same day that Bennet accidentally employed the proud friend of a neo-Nazi for a total of five hours before being forced to let her go.

Now, it seems, Bennet has decided to provide The New York Times staff with a 1,500-word explanation on why these men and women are not actually upset about the opinion section’s attempts at heterodoxy. Instead, they are scared of being challenged. He also makes sure to remind the staff that he is “picking our contributors with care, looking for people who share Times standards for fairness and intellectual honesty and originality.” People such as John Lott, who Bennet published two days ago and who is one of the most widely discredited gun researchers working today.

He closes by, essentially, begging his newsroom colleagues, the people whose jobs it is to hold major institutions accountable and urge transparency, to please keep any criticism (and subsequent leaks) to themselves.

On a related note, if you work at The New York Times and would like to get in touch, you can reach me by email at ashley.feinberg@huffpost.com. Alternatively, my Twitter DMs are open.


Source: Huffingtonpost News