The New York Times is Dead
Long live the New York Times
The New York Times is dead. By that, I do not mean that the newspaper is doomed -- no, I suspect it has many long years of financial viability ahead. I also do not mean that it will cease to be an excellent newspaper. I expect the organization to continue to produce much valuable journalism.
No, I mean that the New York Times is dead as a liberal institution. Its role as a central pillar of liberal values in the North American intellectual firmament is now over.
This week, Opinions Editor James Bennet resigned over the decision to run an now infamous oped by Senator Tom Cotton. His replacement reportedly told staff: "Anyone who sees any piece of Opinion journalism, headlines, social posts,photos—you name it—that gives you the slightest pause, please call or text me immediately.”
Its public decisions over the past few days have signaled that the Times has adopted a fundamentally new role within the media ecosystem. It has rejected its position as a Newspaper of Record, and instead embraced its position as a progressive institution, whose job it is to promote specific narratives to the noble end of promoting racial and social justice.
If certain foundational values -- like freedom of speech, or diversity of viewpoints, or objective truth -- must be sacrificed to these ends, then so be it.
The implications of this decision are significant. I don't know of a single liberal reader or writer who is failing to mourn what feels like a loss. To watch the Times fall is to see Constantine the Great order his soldiers to paint the Chi-Rho on their shields and to be left unsure of one's place on the battlefield. No one who possesses a heterodox opinion or mind can avoid feeling he or she is suddenly a heathen on the fringe of a glorious new religion.
But let's step back from grandiloquent metaphors for a moment.
How the Times got here is instructive.
Last week, week, the paper's editorial page ran a column by Senator Tom Cotton arguing in favor of sending in the military to quell the most violent emanations of the mass protests that have broken out across America since the murder of George Floyd.
"One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law," he wrote.
The headline: “Send in the Military” was needlessly incendiary. In and of itself, there was nothing particularly interesting about the argument. One might nitpick certain details or word choice. It's a fairly standard conservative take. While there is a heartening level of support for the protests, he idea of sending in the military to address violence even boasts significant support among Democrats.
Yet rather than rebut, nitpick, or mock the idea, the column was deemed hate speech, a literal threat to lives, and, absurdly, even a call for mass murder.
Personally, I think Cotton is wrong, and daft. I oppose using military forces against all domestic protests. Hell, I'd argue for the moral righteousness of both the protests and the riots.
One of the founding ideals of the American revolution was the belief that standing armies were a mark of tyranny. And yet here we are, tolerating the sight of citizens beaten in the streets and menaced by repurposed military equipment.
Yet there was nothing more remarkable about Cotton's column than the moment in which it was published.
It was the response from New York Times staffers that proved extraordinary. It ran the gamut, from understandable expressions of shame, to deranged statements like: “Running this puts Black @nytimes staff in danger.”
An internal example of a complaint, leaked to Slate, reportedly came from an "Employee C" who insists he or she understands the paper's mandate and mission, including the need to publish challenging opeds. But "this does harm to our newsgathering right now, erodes trust with readers and will reflect poorly on us in the historical record," the employee wrote.
Does it harm newsgathering? Does it erode trust?
From my own work history, I can confirm that contrarian and offensive takes out of the opinion side can, indeed, make it difficult for reporters to report. So I can empathize with Employee C, up there.
But every controversial opinion can make life harder for reporters. It has always been thus. If opinion sections ought to avoid opeds that "erode trust" or create challenges for on-the-ground reporters, perhaps they are best avoided altogether.
And are we really meant to believe that all of the Times' excellent, largely supportive reporting on the George Floyd protests will be so negated by one Tom Cotton oped that it will "reflect poorly on us in the historical record?"
Is being well thought of by future historians our top priority? Is the purpose of a newspaper to serve as a public relations exercise to posterity?
On my gravestone, let it note: "I'm dead, like everyone else. My brain and heart are dust. But when they beat, at least they did believe the correct things."
With apologies to Employee C, the vanity is something to behold.
The severest criticism came from Times employees who feared that the Cotton oped would put their lives in danger.
From the NewsGuild of New York, to wit:
"(Cotton's) message undermines the journalistic work of our members, puts our Black staff members in danger, promotes hate, and is likely to encourage further violence. Invariably invoking state violence disproportionately hurts Black and brown people. It also jeopardizes our journalists' ability to work in the field safely and effectively."
Running an oped by Senator Tom Cotton puts Black staffers in danger? From whom? From protesters who would turn on journalists as a result? From the police? Or is the argument that the oped might encourage the government to send in military reinforcements which might then increase acts of violence against protesters generally, and people of color specifically, which might then put staffers' lives at risk? (The police seem to be doing a bang up job putting journalists' lives at risks without the help of the military, but I digress.)
If running controversial opinions puts staff at risk -- and this does happen -- then, typically, a media outlet is obliged to hire or engage additional security measures.
Responding in any other way is untenable. No news outlet can allow its reporting to be held hostage by a credible physical threat to its staff. Otherwise, objects of power and corruption would be able to end difficult reporting by threatening staff.
The responsibility of the paper isn't to avoid publishing controversial work; it's to mitigate the risk to its staff that publishing that work may entail.
If we were talking about specific threats, then a union would be within its right to call for specific safety measures. But the risk posed by Tom Cotton's oped is something else entirely.
The claim was an act of emotional manipulation intended to shame editors for giving a platform to a view that many of its progressive staff oppose. On Wednesday, after a day of Twitter hellfire and fury, the Times issued a statement that walked back the oped.
Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement:
“This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short-term and long-term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reducing the number of Op-Eds we publish.”
Note, that no explanation was made, here, of what standards were not met. Murphy makes a reference to "fact-checking," but points to no errors. One of the major objections to Cotton's oped was his reference to "left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes."
The Times itself unpacked that claim in its reporting. Even so, the role of groups like antifa -- although probably much more marginal than Cotton and the White House imply -- is still under investigation. This claim, in and of itself, might call for a clarification, or a letter to the editor, but would not be enough to warrant the retraction of an oped.
The concern does not appear to be grounded in specific problems with the column, but rather that the piece was permitted to see print at such a sensitive moment.
A letter of protest has reportedly been signed by 500 New York Times Staff; as well, the NewsGuild of New York has issued a statement calling the publication of Cotton's essay an "irresponsible choice" noting the "timing of its call to arms."
I can't find myself getting terribly worked up by the protest, nor by the many New York Times staffers who took to Twitter to object to Cotton's editorial, specifically. I remain a firm defender of one's right to give her employer hell on Twitter. The Times' prohibition on public acts of censure by its employees is precious.
What I do find baffling is how many seem to buy into a role for the Newspaper of Record that is antithetical to any I recognize.
It's a role that seems to prioritize the sensitivity of the moment; that cannot tolerate controversial opinion for the consequence that opinion might entail. It's a role that is more concerned with appearing to be on the right side of history than simply doing the work of history.
No newspaper can ever been totally open to all ideas and positions. There are views so far beyond the pale of acceptable thought that they do not warrant any platform or debate. It's the role of a mainstream newspaper to manage the questions that exist within the public sphere that day.
But if you imagine a senator arguing to send in the troops is outside the Overton window, in this godforsaken year of 2020, brace yourself for some bad, bad news come November.
I wish I could say that I believed that this incident at the Times was isolated. Perhaps just a overzealous response from a staff caught up in in the optimism of a dying old order. But I don't think that's true.
For years, illiberal tactics have been used to shut down wrong opinions. Ad hominem attacks, deplatforming, mob bullying on social media, emotional manipulation, and other crude tricks of social control are increasingly normal methods used to narrow the scope of debate.
It's not enough to simply challenge bad opinions and decisions.
Freedom of speech and diversity of viewpoint are now seen by some as the foundation of a corrupt and racist intellectual system that prop up existing structures of power.
I can empathize with that position. I simply cannot agree with it.
If you abandon those foundational values, I fear we will not create a better, more equitable society -- but, rather, a totalitarian one. Good intentions will not protect us from the corruption of evil tactics.
Liberal institutions and their leaders are proving themselves most vulnerable to illiberalism in their eagerness to contribute to that better world. They are buying into a habit of mind that would undermine the very liberal ideals that their institutions were created to uphold.
On that pleasant note; this change may not be all bad.
The idea of a newspaper serving as a kind of mainstream arbiter of history was always a bit of a North American affectation. In the U.K., newspapers are quite openly partisan, and no one would dispute that they maintain a lively media culture. Perhaps it's even a better culture for abandoning the idea that a newspaper can serve as a credible reservoir for every ideology.
The crisis of 2020 is not that it has created new or unforeseeable problems. This is the year that exposed what was already broken and accelerated the trends that were already underway. This is the year of the apocalypse, of revelation.
The New York Times is Dead. Long live the New York Times.