MEDIA
NYT opinion editor resigns after outrage over Tom
Cotton op-ed
James Bennet stepped down following the opinion
article that called for using the military against recent protests.
By RISHIKA
DUGYALA
06/07/2020
06:47 PM EDT
The New
York Times announced on Sunday that its editorial page editor had resigned
after backlash from the public and the company’s own employees over a
Republican senator’s op-ed that called for using military force against recent
protests.
In a
statement, The Times said that James Bennet had resigned and that Katie
Kingsbury would serve as the acting editorial page editor through the November
election. The deputy editorial page editor, Jim Dao, is being reassigned to the
newsroom and is stepping off the masthead.
“James is a
journalist of enormous talent and integrity who believes deeply in the mission
of The Times,” said paper’s publisher, A.G. Sulzberger. “He oversaw a
significant transformation of the Opinion department, which broadened the range
of voices we publish and pushed us into new formats like video, graphics and
audio. I’m grateful for his many contributions.”
Bennet
added in the Sunday statement: “The journalism of Times Opinion has never
mattered more than in this time of crisis at home and around the world, and
I’ve been honored to be part of it. I’m so proud of the work my colleagues and
I have done to focus attention on injustice and threats to freedom and to
enrich debate about the right path forward by bringing new voices and ideas to
Times readers.”
His
resignation comes as hundreds of thousands of people have protested police
brutality across the country, angered by the death of George Floyd — and black
Americans before him — at the hands of white police officers. But increased
military and police presence at demonstrations have heightened tensions,
leading to some clashes and videos of law enforcement using excessive force.
The
Wednesday opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), titled “Send the Troops
In,” advocated for deploying the military against the protests of the police
killings of black Americans. The senator described looting in New York City as
“carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements,” and
wrote that leftist antifa movement had infiltrated protests — which an earlier
Times article had called misinformation.
The column
immediately drew backlash, with dozens of Times journalists voicing their
opposition, tweeting the headline, caption and a form of the phrase “Running
this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.”
Nikole
Hannah-Jones, who recently won a Pulitzer prize for the 1619 Project, which
examines the legacy of slavery in America, tweeted: “I’ll probably get in
trouble for this, but to not say something would be immoral. As a black woman,
as a journalist, I am deeply ashamed that we ran this.”
Both
Sulzberger and Bennet first defended the decision to run the column. Bennet
wrote in an essay that “debating influential ideas openly, rather than letting
them go unchallenged, is far more likely to help society reach the right
answers.”
But on
Thursday evening, the Times reversed itself and said the column had not met
editorial standards. The Times reported that Bennet said in a meeting with
staff members that he had not read the essay before it was published. And the
paper added an editor’s note to the top of the original column.
“We’ve
examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication,” said Eileen
Murphy, a Times spokeswoman. “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.”
The Daily
Beast reported that top editors apologized to Times staff in a long, tense
internal meeting, acknowledging that Cotton had been invited to write the
column. Bennet said he was sorry for “the pain that this particular piece has
caused.”
President
Donald Trump quickly weighed in on Bennet’s resignation.
“Opinion
Editor at @nytimes just walked out,” he wrote on Twitter. “That’s right, he
quit over the excellent Op-Ed penned by our great Senator @TomCottonAR.
TRANSPARENCY! The State of Arkansas is very proud of Tom. The New York Times is
Fake News!!!”
A short
while later, Cotton retweeted the president and took offense at media headlines
asserting that he had called for military force.
“This is
false and offensive,” he tweeted. “I called for using military force as a
backup — only if police are overwhelmed — to stop riots, not to be used against
protesters. If @nytimes has any decency left, they should retract this smear.“
Bennet, who
previously served as editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was rumored to be a
candidate to run The Times after Executive Editor Dean Baquet stepped down.
The Sunday
announcement from the Times came a day after Stan Wischnowski, the top editor
of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said he would resign following criticism for
publishing the headline “Buildings Matter, Too” as civil unrest grew over
George Floyd’s death. The controversy led to a public apology, and dozens of
the paper’s journalists of color called in “sick and tired of not being heard.”
More media
companies are reckoning with former and current employees voicing their
disapproval of leadership and internal structures they say have harmed
journalists of color. On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had been accused of barring two journalists from
covering anti-racism protests because they were seen as biased for being black.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário