A former top editor at The New York Times is speaking publicly for the first time about his firing from the leading national newspaper and the outlet’s editorial direction in the current media environment.
James Bennet, an opinion editor who was ousted from the Times following its publication of a controversial op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), told news startup Semafor that during the episode, the Times “blew the opportunity to make clear that the New York Times doesn’t exist just to tell progressives how progressives should view reality.”
“That was a huge mistake and a missed opportunity for him to show real strength,” Bennet said of Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger. “He still could have fired me.”
The publication of the Cotton op-ed, which advocated for sending National Guard troops in to quell civil unrest in major America cities following the police murder of George Floyd, was met with widespread condemnation externally and internal backlash among Times staffers.
The Times eventually attached a lengthy editor’s note to the online version of the Cotton entry saying it “met strong criticism from many readers (and many Times colleagues), prompting editors to review the piece and the editing process. Based on that review, we have concluded that the essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published.”
Bennet called the editor’s note a mistake.
“They want to have the applause and the welcome of the left, and now there’s the problem on top of that that they’ve signed up so many new subscribers in the last few years and the expectation of those subscribers is that the Times will be Mother Jones on steroids,” he told Semafor.
Bennet, the brother of Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), has since joined The Economist as a columnist.
