The ongoing feud between New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and former opinion editor James Bennet has put a renewed spotlight on "illiberal bias" issues at the paper that were at the center of the media zeitgeist in 2020.
Bennet, who was forced to resign in 2020, penned a lengthy essay last week for The Economist outlining how liberal groupthink had taken over the Times newsroom. He suggested the paper has "lost its way," and said Sulzberger forced him to resign with "icy anger that still puzzles and saddens me" because liberal staffers were offended by an op-ed he published by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who suggested the military could be deployed to quell urban riots that summer.
Politico’s Ian Ward labeled Bennet’s 16,000-plus word article "a damning portrait of the Times," while Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway said it "indicts his former paper for its close-mindedness."
NY TIMES PUBLISHER FIRES BACK AT EX-EDITOR WHO SAYS PAPER 'LOST ITS WAY': THAT'S A 'FALSE NARRATIVE'
Fox News contributor Joe Concha called Bennet’s forced resignation "one of the most disturbing things we've witnessed in journalism" in recent memory.
"Here we had a Pulitzer-Prize winning editor in James Bennet, who was at the Times for many years, and he gets ousted for having the audacity of publishing an op-ed from a sitting U.S. Senator and former member U.S. Army Captain, Tom Cotton, who simply argued for sending in National Guard troops if riots and violent protests in U.S. cities got out of control," Concha told Fox News Digital.
"Is this an outlandish perspective? An ABC News poll at the time showed 52% of voters supported Cotton's perspective, making it a worthy column for civilized debate," Concha continued. "But several Times so-called ‘journalists’ took to Twitter to voice their disagreement with the paper’s decision to publish Cotton’s piece, including ‘1619 Project’ creator Nikole Hannah-Jones who said she was ‘ashamed’ a reasonable opinion piece from a sitting senator ran."
Concha said "of course, leadership at the Times buckled" and caved to liberal outrage by showing Bennet the door.
"Good for him for calling the Times out for what it is: A far-left woke publication which allows the most extreme elements of the newsroom dictate its content," Concha said.
A former New York Times insider, who was with the paper in 2020, summarized general reaction inside the newspaper as "annoyed," saying it seemed like Bennet had just been "stewing" for three years and was suddenly airing his grievances. That said, they acknowledged, there's a good number of people in the building who agreed with the thrust of Bennet's arguments and felt the internal revolt over Cotton's op-ed went too far.
"I think they view the summer of 2020 as a moment of temporary insanity they’ve moved past," the insider said.
Bennet certainly called out his former employer, accusing the Times of graduating from liberal bias to illiberal bias and shutting down opposing viewpoints. He recalled top editor Dean Baquet asking in the midst of newsroom revolt over Cotton’s op-ed, "Are we truly so precious?"
"The answer, it turned out, was yes," Bennet wrote.
Bennet criticism of the Gray Lady echoed claims made by former New York Times opinion columnist and editor Bari Weiss in 2020, who published a scathing resignation letter saying she was bullied by colleagues in an "illiberal environment." Weiss noted that her own "forays into Wrongthink" made her the subject of "constant bullying by colleagues" who disagree with her views.
"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," Weiss wrote at the time.
Claims that the Times favors liberals and far-left ideology have not exactly waned.
DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall believe Bennet is "providing a window into seeing what most Americans have generally known" for some time.
"The New York Times has, indeed, lost its way. And in the process, the Times has given permission and modeled, so to speak, for the rest of the establishment media to become activist organizations as opposed to journalistic organizations," McCall told Fox News Digital.
McCall said "there is a role for enterprise and even some degree of activism in journalism, but that content needs to be labeled as such and confined to sections that don't deal with news in its traditional definition."
"Credibility ratings of the news industry are in steep decline because the public recognizes that establishment media are stealthily driving opinion into the presentation of news. This is the illiberal bias of which Bennet speaks," he said. "There is a reason why the Times has become the darling of left-leaning readers and politicians, and is generally shunned by right-leaning Americans."
Sulzberger fired back at Bennet hours after the Economist essay went viral.
"James Bennet and I have always agreed on the importance of independent journalism, the challenges it faces in today's polarized world, and the mission of The Times to pursue independence even when the path of less resistance might be to give into partisan passions. But I could not disagree more strongly with the false narrative he has constructed about The Times," Sulzberger said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Sulzberger touted The Times' reporting, citing its recent coverage of the wars in Europe and the Middle East and the 2024 election cycle among examples, saying "our 2,000 journalists are breaking stories, holding the powerful to account, and seeking to shed light rather than heat on the most divisive issues of our time, regardless of whom our coverage might upset." He also praised his paper's opinion section for having "grown in size and ambition since 2020," insisting he's doubling down on The Times "commitment to exploring a wide range of viewpoints."
"James was a valued partner, but where I parted ways with him is on how to deliver on these values. Principles alone are not enough. Execution matters. Leadership matters," Sulzberger added.
As for Hannah-Jones, she appeared to take a shot at Bennet following his lengthy takedown of the Times.
"That’s a lot of self-indulgent words because you thought you’d be editor one day," she posted on X without directly naming Bennet. "Don’t we all look back fondly on the time when newsrooms run almost exclusively by White men produced the epitome of objective news that truly represented the real people of America."
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
