James Bennet, the former Editor of the New York Times editorial page who resigned in 2020 following the publication of a controversial opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton, has accused the newspaper of shifting from a liberal bias to what he calls an “illiberal bias,” which he argues stifles open debate.
In a lengthy cover story for The Economist, where he now holds a position as a columnist and senior editor, Bennet delves into the evolving editorial environment at the New York Times. He reveals that as the newspaper’s leftward shift became more apparent, he was encouraged to attach “trigger warnings” to opinion pieces authored by conservatives.
“The bias had become so ingrained, even among senior editors in the newsroom, that one top editor suggested I begin attaching trigger warnings to conservative pieces. He seemed unaware of how this might stigmatize certain colleagues or reflect on the Times’s own bias,” Bennet lamented.
Bennet’s association with the New York Times began long before his tenure as Editor. He initially worked at the Times, departing in 2006 after 15 years to become the Editor of The Atlantic. He later returned to the Times in May 2016 as editorial page editor, a role he held until his resignation in June 2020, prompted by the publication of Tom Cotton’s op-ed.
The controversial article by Cotton advocated for the deployment of troops to protect businesses and lives during the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd. Bennet recalled that it was a turbulent period in the United States, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and incidents of police brutality. He believed that journalism had a vital role to play in helping readers understand and address these challenges.
However, Cotton’s op-ed triggered not only external criticism but also internal backlash from Times reporters who took to social media to condemn the decision to publish the piece.
“The following day, the Times’s union, represented by the NewsGuild-CWA, issued a statement labeling the op-ed ‘a clear threat to the health and safety of the journalists we represent,'” Bennet recounted.
Bennet attributes his departure to pressure from A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, who ultimately compelled him to resign. Sulzberger disagreed with Bennet’s characterization of events, asserting that they both valued independent journalism and acknowledged the challenges it faced in a polarized world.
Bennet argued that he and then-Editor-in-Chief Dean Baquet initially believed in providing Times readers with a spectrum of views, including those of Tom Cotton. However, as backlash grew, both Baquet and Sulzberger changed their stance.
Sulzberger pressured Bennet to issue an “editor’s note” critiquing Cotton’s op-ed. When the note was published, it disavowed the piece more strongly than Bennet had anticipated, stating that it should never have been published at all.
Bennet recalled Sulzberger’s call to his home the day after the note’s publication, in which the publisher, in Bennet’s words, displayed icy anger and demanded his resignation.
Bennet expressed his concern over the changing landscape of journalism at the Times. He suggested that many of the newspaper’s staff might not fully grasp how closed their worldview had become or how distant they had become from the newspaper’s commitment to providing an unbiased view of the world.
In his article, Bennet also critiqued the Times’ coverage of former President Donald Trump, including its initial failure to take his 2016 campaign seriously and its delayed acknowledgment of factors such as the origins of COVID-19 and the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Bennet concluded by suggesting that the New York Times could learn from The Wall Street Journal’s stricter separation of news and opinion journalism, which he believes has safeguarded the integrity of its reporting.
