By James Bennet Are we truly so precious?” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, asked me one Wednesday evening in June 2020. In his article for Columbia Journalism Review, Sulzberger cites the Times’s failure to take Trump’s chances seriously as an example of how “prematurely shutting down inquiry and debate” can allow “conventional wisdom to ossify …
The New York Times’ ability to weather very public internal controversies has been tested yet again this week with the resignation of veteran science reporter Donald McNeil over his use of the N-word on a trip with high school students in Peru in 2019. And when you have someone like me who is an easy lightning rod for people who …
Chaos erupted in a Facebook group of former and current New York Times writers, soon after the forced ‘resignation’ of star science writer Donald McNeil Jr. from the paper. “We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” Dean Baquet, the NYT’s executive editor, told staff in an email. NYT reporter Michael Powell, who specializes in free speech issues, sparked …
