Ben Smith, a former media columnist for The New York Times, launched the media site Semafor. He was a victim of the paper’s identity crisis in Wall Street and among its ultra-liberal readers.
Smith explained the implications of the crisis on the Times’ share price. Smith then turned his attention to James Bennet, an ex-editorial page editor and “onetime successor apparent to run the Times,” who caused a stir among the paper’s left-wing mob. Bennet was fired for publishing an op-ed written by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton (R), calling for military intervention to stop looting and rioting in the wake protests over George Floyd’s police shooting. (See the cringeworthy editor’s note attached at the top of Cotton’s op-ed. Bennet now claims he was forced to sign it.
Two notable moments from that period are still defining the paper’s public image for many readers: the firing of James Bennet, opinion editor, over a column by Senator Tom Cotton calling for the military to enter cities to suppress looters and rioters; and the company’s embrace of the 1619 Project’s provocative reinterpretation about slavery’s place in American History.
The paper’s “educational” 1619 Project, which was tied to the 400th anniversary in North America of slavery, was infamous. It linked slavery to American capitalism, Atlanta traffic jams and even accounting procedures.
The Times has taken internal steps to silence progressive shrieking and to modify the paper’s contents.
….editors assigned a group of skeptical writers to write about the most sensitive issues in American arguments about race, health, and identity. Some were insiders like Michael Powell, whose work often contrasted rhetorical concern about racial injustice and the realities class . Former books editor Pamela Paul became a sharp object on the opinion page, whacking at conflicts over cancel culture and appropriation, which had raged through Twitter.
Smith was interviewed by Bennet about Smith’s poor treatment by top Times management. Bennet believes that A.G. Sulzberger, the paper’s publisher, “blew the chance to make it clear that the New York Times does not exist to tell progressives what they should think of reality.” He said that it was a big mistake and an opportunity for him not to show real strength.”
Bennet was quoted as saying that top management wants the applause, the welcome of the left. However, the problem is that they have signed up so many new subscribers over the past few years. The expectation of those subscribers, Bennet said, is that the Times would be Mother Jones on steroids.
Bennet, who spent 19 of his career at The Times, stated that he is still hurt by Mr. Sulzberger’s lack of loyalty.
“This is why my confusion lasted so long after I felt like all my colleagues treated me like an incompetent fascist.”
Bennet’s clearly political sacrifice to the Times’ woke household gods destroyed the paper’s already absurd claim to political balance.
