The New York Times came under fire last week after publishing Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton’s “Send in the Troops” op-ed, a frighteningly fascist take on the George Floyd protests. Many readers and journalists at the Times were infuriated by the incendiary and downright dangerous screed, which lacked facts and credibility.
In response, over 300 employees staged a virtual walkout, and every contributor of color tweeted the message that Cotton’s article put their lives in danger.
Yesterday two dozen of us who make @nytimes publishing tools called out sick in solidarity with our Black colleagues & in protest of the Cotton op-ed. I was harassed on Twitter all day for it.
Guess what? Today there's a virtual walkout of 300+ of us who work outside editorial. pic.twitter.com/Tv6kgaSaoK
— Nozlee Samadzadeh (@nzle) June 5, 2020
James Bennet, the editor in charge of the opinion section, had reportedly told employees that he hadn’t even read the piece before it went to print. The Times’s publisher, A. G. Sulzberger, said that “Given that this is not the first lapse, the Opinion department will also be taking several initial steps to reduce the likelihood of something like this happening again.”
The New York Times has now announced Bennet’s resignation and replacement with Katie Kingsbury:
The @nytimes announced today that James Bennet, Editorial Page Editor since May 2016, is resigning effective immediately. Katie Kingsbury, who joined The Times in 2017, has been named as acting Editorial Page Editor through the November election. https://t.co/84QX4OrrcG
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) June 7, 2020
Katie Kingsbury was previously the managing editor at the Boston Globe. In 2015 she won a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for a series of articles that exposed the unfair working conditions facing restaurant workers.
This is an important and long overdue move for the editorial page, which has all too often amplified conservative voices at the expense of writers of color. Also, how can you call yourself an editor and NOT READ the stories you publish? Sorry James Bennet, but when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
(image: KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images)
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— Craigory Smith, KXCN⚪️ (@nihilist_bucks) June 6, 2020
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