‘Twitter has become its ultimate editor’: Opinion writer Bari Weiss resigns from New York Times

A prominent conservative columnist has quit the New York Times, claiming she was bullied out of her job by its dominant leftist culture.

A prominent conservative columnist has quit the vaunted New York Times newspaper claiming she was bullied out of her job by its dominant leftist culture.

In a dramatic open letter, author and commentator Bari Weiss described a toxic work culture where “centrists” were scared to voice their opinion out of fear they would be shamed on social media or even sacked.

Weiss wrote to publisher A.G Sulzberger that she joined the newspaper after Donald Trump was elected president because: “the paper’s failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn’t have a firm grasp of the country it covers”.

It was the second recent newsmaking departure from the Times after that of opinion editor James Bennet, who left last month after being criticized for publishing an oped by a Republican senator that called for the Army to be called into American cities to quell civil unrest.

Former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss resigned from the newspaper. Picture: Supplied

Weiss said the paper was repeating the same mistakes of 2016, four months out from the 2020 election, by pitching itself to the “narrowest” audience and focusing too much on social media.

“Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor,” Weiss wrote.

“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 said she resigned “with sadness” after joining the paper with “gratitude and optimism three years ago”.

“I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home,” she wrote.

“The priority in Opinion was to help redress that critical shortcoming.”

But she wrote that as someone who questioned the left-leaning orthodoxy, she was mistreated at the Times, including calls for her sacking on inter-office message boards.

“I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing moulded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative,” she wrote.

“My own forays into Wrongthink 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 I’m “writing about the Jews again.”

“Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by co-workers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. “There, some co-workers 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 are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.”

The reaction to her departure was swift across the political spectrum on social media.

.⁦@bariweiss⁩ - glad u got out of there & well said: “Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.”
Or at a university. A Hollywood audition. Big Tech job. Publishing house. K-12. Virtually any media co.... https://t.co/MaTBez2KVT

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 14, 2020

“If someone like @bariweiss feels like she can’t do her best work at the @nytimes they should make some real changes over there,” Tweeted former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

Donald Trump Jr posted: “NYT editor @bariweiss resigns in STUNNING fashion & exposes the Times’ rampant attacks on anyone who breaks from the far-left narrative. “Speak your mind at your own peril … the publisher will cave to the mob.” If you RT/share 1 thing today THIS is it!”

Conservatives including former Fox News host Megyn Kelly and panelist from The View, Meghan McCain, also expressed their dismay.

In her open letter, Weiss said the paper’s leadership had not adequately addressed the hostility and had acted hypocritically.

“I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behaviour to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public,” she wrote.

“And I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage.

“Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.

“Part of me wishes I could say that my experience was unique. But the truth is that intellectual curiosity — let alone risk-taking — is now a liability at The Times. Why edit something challenging to our readers, or write something bold only to go through the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world? And so self-censorship has become the norm.”

Weiss said that any outlier to the popular Times narrative “lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.”

Referring to Bennet’s resignation, she said the paper was increasingly censoring its content.

“What rules that remain at The Times are applied with extreme selectivity. If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinised,” she said.

“Op-eds that would have easily been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired. If a piece is perceived as likely to inspire backlash internally or on social media, the editor or writer avoids pitching it. If she feels strongly enough to suggest it, she is quickly steered to safer ground. And if, every now and then, she succeeds in getting a piece published that does not explicitly promote progressive causes, it happens only after every line is carefully massaged, negotiated and caveated.”

The New York Times’s acting editorial page editor Kathleen Kingsbury said in a statement the paper was committed to diversity.

“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,” she said.

“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.”