Opinion columnist Bari Weiss’s resignation this week from the New York Times seems to confirm what many conservatives had already guessed about the paper’s clear descent into illiberal fanaticism.
It has been clear for a while now that the New York Times suffered a kind of psychotic break following the election, going all-in on even the most absurd variations of anti-Trump “resistance” and embracing a position that says “tribalism is righteous and diversity of thought is wicked.” It is wild, however, to hear a newly former employee allege in explicit detail the paper’s obvious post-2016 election meltdown.
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“The lessons that ought to have followed the election — lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society — have not been learned,” the now-ex New York Times columnist explained in her letter of resignation, which she has made publicly available.
She adds, “Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”
Weiss’s letter continues, alleging that the New York Times’s breakneck descent these past few years into left-wing purism has been fueled largely by activist staffers, social media, and the cowardice of the paper’s senior executives.
“Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times,” she writes. “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.”
Weiss notes, “Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.”
These trends at the New York Times have been obvious to anyone with working eyeballs.
However, Weiss continues, there is the issue that many may not know about, and that is the issue of the paper’s hostile workplace environment. She claims she was targeted specifically because she did not share her colleagues’ politics.
Weiss writes:
[…]
All this bodes ill, especially for independent-minded young writers and editors paying close attention to what they’ll have to do to advance in their careers. Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril. Rule Two: Never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative. Rule Three: Never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain. Eventually, the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired or reassigned, and you’ll be hung out to dry.
If what Weiss says is true about workplace harassment at the New York Times, and she can supply evidence of the targeted abuse, it sounds a lot like she could have a legal case should she decide to pursue such action. Spokespersons for the New York Times did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
“Part of me wishes I could say that my experience was unique,” writes Weiss. “But the truth is that intellectual curiosity — let alone risk-taking — is now a liability at The Times.”
She adds, “Op-eds that would have easily been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired. If a piece is perceived as likely to inspire backlash internally or on social media, the editor or writer avoids pitching it. If she feels strongly enough to suggest it, she is quickly steered to safer ground. And if, every now and then, she succeeds in getting a piece published that does not explicitly promote progressive causes, it happens only after every line is carefully massaged, negotiated and caveated.”
The New York Times is still powerful, Weiss concludes, but it is also becoming increasingly distant and removed from the lives of all but the nichest of niche readers.
“The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people,” Weiss writes. “This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its ‘diversity‘; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.”
It was clear to the average observer even before the publication of Weiss’s letter that the New York Times has undergone some sort of radical, left-wing takeover, as exemplified so clearly with the fiasco involving an employee revolt and resignation following the publication of an opinion article authored by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
It is just another thing entirely to hear a former employee say it aloud.
