An op-ed column may reverberate but it must be exceedingly rare that mere words by a U.S. senator in a mainstream news organization cause its reporters to say they have been made unsafe. Until June 3, when
Cotton’s piece, “Send In The Troops,” claimed riots in U.S. cities had “nothing to do with George Floyd ... On the contrary, nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.” There was one way to restore order, Cotton said: “an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”
That was too much for a raft of New York Times reporters, who took to social media, defying their newspaper’s policy. Many of their tweets said the same thing: “Running this puts black @nytimes staff in danger.” An unnamed Times employee, writing on a company Slack channel, said “our own journalists report” the Cotton piece “is impacting their safety and ability to source stories.” In reporting on the flap, The Times said, “Three Times journalists, who declined to be identified by name, said they had informed their editors that sources told them they would no longer provide them with information because of the op-ed.”
Apparently, sources give Times reporters information with the proviso the sources must approve of what runs in the paper or online (Cotton’s op-ed never made it to print), even if it appears in a section entirely separate, in theory, from news. That words alone are dangerous and must be suppressed seems like a strange road for Times reporters to take now if they were being principled.
Just over three months ago, the Times published an op-ed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, who was described as the deputy leader of the Taliban. “We did not choose our war with the foreign coalition led by the United States,” Haqqani said. “We were forced to defend ourselves.”
Was it worth hearing from Haqqani in the Times as peace talks with the Taliban were faltering? We thought so. As Times editorial page editor James Bennet, the brother of Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, said the other day, the Times opinion pages owe it to its readers “to show them counter-arguments, particularly those made by people in a position to set policy.”
People from outside the paper criticized giving Haqqani a platform in the Times. He can still be found on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist list, with a reward of $5 million for information leading directly to his arrest. Among other things, Haqqani is wanted for attempting to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2008 and for his role in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s Serena Hotel that year. Times reporters did not object, however, even though Times reporter David Rohde was kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2008 and, before he escaped, was reportedly “sold up the food chain” to an Afghan warlord: Sirajuddin Haqqani.
On Thursday, Bennet published a column deftly defending the publication of the Cotton piece. By the end of the day, the Times was in full retreat, saying Bennet had not read the piece before it was published, that it had been “rushed,” that it “did not meet our standards” and that the Times would address this by “reducing the number of op-eds we publish.” On Sunday, Bennet was ousted. His deputy was reassigned to the newsroom.
No one can censor the Times but itself. At the moment, it seems to be doing an excellent job of just that.
