Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the resignation of Bari Weiss, who was an opinion editor and writer for the New York Times, reveals the paper is a propaganda outlet.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner discussing his podcast Verdict, co-hosted by conservative commentator Michael Knowles, Cruz said Weiss’s resignation amounts to an indictment of the New York Times that necessitates alternative forms of media consumption.
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“They are propagandists. They don’t pretend. There is no journalistic integrity. They don’t aspire to it. It’s not the objective. They are propagandists, and that’s all they want to be,” Cruz said. “I’ve never been a fan of the New York Times, but actually having a free press that are not propagandists is good for this country. Too many institutions have been destroyed by the tyranny of the modern left.”
Knowles said the outlet did not react with “soul-searching” after President Trump’s stunning 2016 election victory but instead reacted with an attitude that “an enlightened few ought to tell the revealed truth that only they have.”
“That is no longer an acceptable formula for the media. We are not going to be lied to by a gatekeeping press. The people want to get a clear and true message out there,” Knowles said.
Weiss, who was with the New York Times since 2017, resigned from the paper on Tuesday, asserting that her colleagues had harassed her to a level that amounted to “unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharges.”
“My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m ‘writing about the Jews again,'” she said. “Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in.”
Weiss said her columns on Judaism and anti-Semitism were mocked by colleagues, and she ridiculed the seemingly incoherent positions by some opinion writers. According to Weiss, the editorial direction of the paper has been guided by social media opinions and catered to “the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.”
“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 said. “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,” Weiss wrote.
