Writer Bari Weiss resigns from New York Times, citing Liberal Environment
Bari Weiss, a staff writer and editor for the fast-growing Opinion section of the New York Times, is quitting her job, she announced in a letter to the publisher.
Bari Weiss, staff editor and writer in The New York Times’ opinion section, resigned on Tuesday, decrying what she said was “constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views” and an environment where she said “self-censorship has become the norm.”
Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. Weiss did the A.G. A note addressed to Sulzberger states that it was posted on his personal site on Tuesday. Stories are chosen and asked to allow them to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions, rather than satisfying the audiences narrowness.
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.”
“What rules that remain at The Times are applied with extreme selectivity,” she wrote in a lengthy resignation letter, which she posted to her personal website. “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. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.”
Her resignation follows that of James Bennet, the editor of the Opinion section, who stepped down last month after a number of Times staffers verbally protested the decision to publish an op ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AZ), in which he defended the notion of sending troops to cities to quell protests following the death of George Floyd.
But Weiss claimed that in the environment of the Times, its become a liability to have an alternative point of view. She wrote that my own forays into Wrong Think have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how Im writing about the Jews again.
She added, “Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.”
There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.”
Kathleen Kingsbury, the acting editorial page editor of the Times, said in a statement, “We appreciate the many contributions that Bari made to Times Opinion. I’m personally committed to ensuring that The Times continues to publish voices, experiences and viewpoints from across the political spectrum in the Opinion report. We see every day how impactful and important that approach is, especially through the outsized influence The Times’s opinion journalism has on the national conversation.”
Weiss wrote that after the 2016 election and President Donald Trump surprise victory, she was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your page: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home.
“Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: 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,” she wrote.
“I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behavior to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public. And I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage,” said Weiss. “Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.”
Prior to joining The Times, Weiss was an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal. He also worked on Tablet, an online magazine focused on Jewish politics and culture. He graduated from Columbia University in 2007, and is the author of "How to Fight Anti-Semitism".
