Stunning NYT resignation letter by brave journo

[BovaryX]

Bari Weiss has written a stunning resignation letter from the NYT in which she attacks the absence of a diversity of views and accuses the paper of representing Twitter. Bari Weiss describes being hired in the wake of the shock and awe caused by Trump's election and the media's failure to predict or understand the result. It is a scathing indictment of the culture wars and the intolerance of anything other than left wing orthodoxy on an increasing range of issues.

^I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home. The reason for this effort was clear: The paper’s failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn’t have a firm grasp of the country it covers. Dean Baquet and others have admitted as much on various occasions. The priority in Opinion was to help redress that critical shortcoming.
I was honored to be part of that effort, led by James Bennet. I am proud of my work as a writer and as an editor. But the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative^.

Do you have a link, Bovary? That is excellent -- but is it the whole letter? Does she specifically mention transideology?

Lamaha

Here is a link. I don't think she specifically mentions it, but I thought the letter was illustrative of the way in which the new orthodoxy dominates much of the media. It is a scathing resignation letter.

www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter

Fabulous. Courage speaks to courage.

It seems Bari Weiss has a very well reviewed and interesting book on in print, if anyone feels like solidifying their support for her. The kindle edition linked here or there’s the slightly cheaper paperback available for pre-order:

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07VH1YGHR/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8&qid&sr

Even now, I am confident that most people at The Times do not hold these views. Yet they are cowed by those who do. Why? Perhaps because they believe the ultimate goal is righteous. Perhaps because they believe that they will be granted protection if they nod along as the coin of our realm—language—is degraded in service to an ever-shifting laundry list of right causes. Perhaps because there are millions of unemployed people in this country and they feel lucky to have a job in a contracting industry. Or perhaps it is because they know that, nowadays, standing up for principle at the paper does not win plaudits. It puts a target on your back. Too wise to post on Slack, they write to me privately about the “new McCarthyism” that has taken root at the paper of record

This is getting widespread coverage across US media and in the Spectator. Douglas Murray has a piece on it.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-is-the-point-of-the-new-york-times-

In parallel there seems to be acknowledgement within the BBC that the Twittersphere distorts journalistic thinking.

David Jordan the corporation's director of editorial policy and standards, has apparently told the Lords communications and digital committee that too much left-liberal group thinking, rather than impartiality, has been adopted by reporters.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8523805/BBC-journalists-addicted-toxic-Twitter-bosses-say.html

My hope would be that if the media better reflected public thinking, rather than pushing its own agenda for social change, people would feel as if their real life concerns were being heard and there would be less polarisation across media, voters and politicians.

Really thought-provoking discussion & links. Bookmarking so I can come back later for an in-depth read.

Brilliant. From your title I thought you were being sarcastic OP

I too will come back later for an in depth read and I think I'm going to be a regular with the Spectator

It's an excellent letter. But I have to say I've steered clear of her articles after the first few I tried. If I had to summarize it: offputting, aren't-I-a-provocative-conservative BS style of writing you get too much of in the US.

I was going to say it's a shame she didn't show this side more earlier, but maybe it's telling that it's in a resignation letter. Maybe it was NYT pushing her toward BS, to fit what's becoming the house style?

It all reads to me as rather arrogant, which is also consistent with her usual writing style - I agree with quixote9 about that. Someone with three years' experience at the paper thinks she knows it all. In years to come I suspect she's going to cringe about this one.

The NYT has become shocking over the last few years. I used to read it regularly back in the noughties and, even though it was a bit old-fashioned, it was a solid paper that covered its regional remit in rigorous way, compared to something like the Evening Standard that, even before the Internet slammed everyone hard, was always quite wishy washy.

But recently, it's just bizarro world. You can sense the post-Trump collective hysteria from your monitor. The Atlantic is not as bad, but it's definitely going that way as well. And I recognise what Murray says when he talks about these publications getting things he knows about badly wrong, so the trust is gone with issues he doesn't know about.

What I don't understand is how these journos and editors have become so sucked into the twitter hive mind. It's precisely the opposite quality you need to be a successful journalist; being so attached to one ideological perspective that it infiltrates everything you write about makes you a propagandist.

I mean, the NYT used to employ fact checkers ffs. I knew people who'd been contacted by them when I worked in the media.

And I recognise what Murray says when he talks about these publications getting things he knows about badly wrong, so the trust is gone with issues he doesn't know about.

Yes I feel like this with the BBC and to be honest a lot of journalists/publications on the left now.

NYT is the Guardian and the BBC ....once trusted organisations now run by credulous fools.

Wasn’t it the NYT that ran a story saying that British people had broken lockdown by going to beaches and swamps . They have a bizarre anti British mindset and are almost always wrong about it which, as Douglas Murray says, makes you mistrust anything they say about subjects you know less about.

That's an excellent letter. I don't read the NYT and I'm not familiar with her work. However, I feel the points she makes about journalistic bravery are valid and concerning.

Signed, a teacher still bruised by the BBC failing to call out Tories on "record pupil funding" lies.

Yes I feel like this with the BBC and to be honest a lot of journalists/publications on the left now.

I agree about the BBC but don't think it's a left/right thing. Look at the later comment about the failure of the BBC to call the current Tory government out on lies. I've started to lose count of BBC articles that end mid sentence or mid subject, as if someone's just edited the final few parapgraphs out to get it to fit, without reviewing context.

I can't stand Trump but The Guardian's viewpoint in him comes across as hysteria. They may as well publish "Trump is a dick" over and over for all the truth they reveal.

I wonder where quality and accuracy and dedication to truth are hiding in journalism because the old reliables no longer have any.

William I find that with The Independent. I'm constantly scrolling down to find the rest of the article and realising that it's actually finished.

And I recognise what Murray says when he talks about these publications getting things he knows about badly wrong, so the trust is gone with issues he doesn't know about.

I feel like this over and over. It's probably making me a better, more critical reader by constantly wondering what they're not saying, what they're misreporting, why they're using language to direct your emotions rather than inform. It's tiring though and not something I want to worry about with a supposedly quality news organisation.

This is a bit off topic but the weakness of reporting these days depresses me. Here’s an example from the BBC which frustrated me. I clicked because I know the area and would like to know more. There are some interesting ideas in there - the community being economic refugees and exiled from a country destroyed by war. There’s content there to talk further about - instead we get some talking heads and some music to provide tension but no actual content. What are rates of poverty in Brent ? What is the rate of infection? What do the local health authorities think is the cause? Has there been an issue with lockdown and if so where and why? What percentage of the population is Somalian ?

It seems to stop before any content materialises. If this had been put together by a 6th former I would not be surprised.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-53348373/coronavirus-england-s-worst-affected-area

Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions

I think this accurately describes the way significant chunks of the legacy media does not report problematic news which conflicts with its political ideology. There is an increasing list of topics on which a monolithic orthodoxy is the only viewpoint tolerated. That is not journalism. As Bari Weiss' scathing resignation letter highlights.

I agree about the BBC but don't think it's a left/right thing.

Yes I would agree with this. I could have phrased my post more clearly.

That really is a most excellent letter. It's hard to believe now that the NYT used to be a serious paper, and they're an object lesson is just how quickly a paper can go from credible to not at all so when it loses sight of what its job is.

Given the general state of newspaper publishing in the US it's all a bit worrying. One those institutions are gone they're unlikely to be replaced, and does anyone really want a media landscape where people get their news entirely from Twitter and Buzzfeed?

She’s absolutely right about Twitter. Fewer than 5% of the world’s population use it, yet it holds sway way above those numbers. In the UK it’s approx 11 million users, Australia 4 million, USA 48 million. That puts the percentage of the population around the 13-18% mark and that’s not even considering sock accounts. Now split that by left wing and right wing and you have a good reason why left wing parties can’t get elected in those countries. They genuinely think if they keep those fewer than 10% of the population on Twitter who are supporters happy with their work tweets, they’ll stroll into government. Meanwhile normal people just say “what the fuck?!” and vote the other way.

Even here we need to be mindful that just because stuff is on Twitter it doesn’t mean it matters as much as certain activists want it to. We put far too much stock in Twitter links here as to how much weight they carry in popular opinion. It’s also the downfall of TRAs. They think people are buying it but they’re not.

TL;DR Twitter should just fuck off really.

*Woke tweets