The New York Times which is owned by The New York Times Company has been doing well in the recent times (at least in terms of the stock price). The insides of the company on the other hand is in some serious turmoil. This is not some speculation from the sidelines but from the the words of an important employee at the company.
Bari Weiss used to be a staff writer and editor for The New York Times until she resigned and her letter of resignation can give some of the best insights into what has happened to journalism. Please keep in mind that this is not Buzzfeed or CNN. This is a company founded in September 18, 1851 that has been around for almost 169 years and has earned a considerable journalistic reputation. The New York Times is supposed to be Crème de la Crème.
Before joining the Times, Bari was an oped editor at the Wall Street Journal and an associate book review editor there. For two years, she was a senior editor at Tablet, the online magazine of Jewish news, politics, and culture, where she edited the site's political and news coverage. She regularly appears on shows like The View, Morning Joe and Bill Maher.
Vanity Fair recently called Weiss the Times's "star opinion writer" and The Jerusalem Post just named Bari the seventh most influential Jew in the world. Her parents were disappointed she didn't rank higher.
- Source: Her Official Website: https://www.bariweiss.com
The Open Letter She Wrote To A. G. Sulzberger
Arthur Gregg Sulzberger is the publisher of The New York Times who oversee the news outlet's journalism and business operations. He has been vocally Anti-Trump in occasions. He can have his personal opinions. But from the looks of it, they are influencing the publications of The New York Times as well.
What We Can Learn From The Bari Weiss Resignation Letter
- She was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages (such as first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others)
- The lessons about understanding fellow Americans was not learned after 2016 election
- A new consensus within the paper emerged; "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."
- The New York Times is overly influenced by Twitter (" 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 specifically chosen to please specific niche audience
- There isn't much room left for readers to come to 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"
- She was constantly bullied and faced incessant workplace harassment and was called a Nazi and a racist
- "My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in"
- It was suggested among her colleagues that she should be rooted out of the publication in order for them to become a truly inclusive
- No action was taken against those who harass her both within the company and out in the public
- Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper has become an act of bravery
- Intellectual curiosity is treated as a liability within the company
- Self-censorship within The New York Times has become the norm
- "What rules that remain at The Times are applied with extreme selectivity. If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome."
- "Op-eds that would have easily been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired."