Workplace discrimination Once known as the ‘Gray Lady,’ the Times now looks more like a middle school run by the ‘Mean Girls’ crowd while top editors cower in their offices.

Bari Weiss has resigned from The New York Times. When the management of The Times decided it was missing something about a large segment of America after the shock of Hillary’s defeat in 2016, editorial page editor James Bennet brought her in to offer a perspective that was, by Times standards at least, conservative.  

Now Bennet’s gone, victim of a rage mob among his staffers who were angry that he published an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., calling for use of the military against rioters — something a majority of Americans agreed with at the time. To The Times mob, however, such a view was so thoroughly beyond the pale that it shouldn’t even be published, never mind that The Times has happily published op-eds by far more extreme figures than a mainstream U.S. senator.

Workplace discrimination Fearful of different ideas

Meanwhile, Weiss says, her views have gotten her nonstop harassment within the newspaper, harassment that her bosses deplored but did nothing to stop: 

“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.’ Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by co-workers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on companywide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some co-workers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly ‘inclusive’ one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are. There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.” 

I don’t know whether the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will investigate The Times for racism, sexism and religious bigotry, but the portrait that Weiss paints of the paper’s culture is an ugly one indeed, and one that comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. 

Aside from Weiss’ experience and the defenestration of Bennet, there have been numerous events such as the firing of executive editor Jill Abramson, which led Matthew Continetti to say, “Gossipy, catty, insular, cliquey, stressful, immature, cowardly, moody, underhanded, spiteful — the New York Times gives new meaning to the term ‘hostile workplace.’ What has been said of the press — that it wields power without any sense of responsibility — is also a fair enough description of the young adult. And it is to high school, I think, that The New York Times is most aptly compared.”

But forget high school. Once known as the “Gray Lady,” The Times now looks more like a middle school run by the “Mean Girls” crowd while the administration cowers in its offices. The proper response to a bunch of junior staffers complaining about articles that a newspaper publishes is something between “Go, write a piece explaining why that piece is wrong” and “Fetch my latte.” Journalism jobs are hard to come by and, for every troublesome staffer at The Times, there are undoubtedly at least a dozen candidates out there who would do at least as good a job and with less overweening self-importance.

Workplace discrimination The Times has fallen from purpose

why has The Times’ management let the inmates run the asylum? I’m afraid the problem starts at the top, with Chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. A 1992 story in New York magazine reports that Sulzberger responded to a complaint from a dignified older man about un-Timesian coverage by saying that if they were making older white men unhappy, they were “doing something right.”  Former Timesman Peter Boyer described newsroom atmosphere in that era as ”moderate white men should die.” (Say, maybe there is something for the DOJ to investigate here.)

But it’s got to be hard for someone who has spent his entire (wealthy, powerful) career trying to “stick it to the man” to suddenly provide adult supervision. And with regard to his son the current publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, to whom Weiss’ resignation is addressed, the apple does not appear to have fallen very far from the tree. Which is too bad, because adult supervision is what The Times needs most.

Previously from author: When Black lives matter to Democrats, and when they don’t

Weiss quotes the 1896 ambition of The Times’ founder, Adolph Ochs: “to make of the columns of The New York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.” 

For many years, though The Times always leaned left, it did in fact function as an arena for public debate. Now its junior staffers, fresh from the hothouse environment of academia, want to make The Times a megaphone for a single set of views. That will diminish the importance of the newspaper but, I predict, not the self-importance of its staffers.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of “The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself,” is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. 

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/15/bari-weiss-letter-resignation-new-york-times-censorship-column/5439150002/