Keep in mind I don’t really follow current events well but I do follow a few blogs that occasionally put in links to primarily liberal-slanted views & opinions. Here’s the way I see this whole Op-Ed business but before I say a few words, keep in mind “Op-Ed” means opposite editorial. It’s the counter view to the paper’s editorial view so if your editor leans left as I assume The NY Times does given how much Trump talks about how bad it is, then an Op-Ed from a conservative view would be appropriate. Until last week, I saw NY Times as a “just left of center” paper publishing news with integrity and purpose and doing so with a liberal viewpoint and by that I mean world/global view of news instead of just America First.
Here’s the post: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html written by “Mr. Cotton, a Republican, is a United States senator from Arkansas”
The times have added an editors note after their staff and millions of people have spoken out and literally walked out of newsrooms in protest over this being published
Here are a few links:
- https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/after-newsroom-protests-the-new-york-times-opinion-page-editor-and-the-top-editor-at-the-philadelphia-inquirer-have-resigned/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/new-york-times-washington-post-protests.html
- https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/this-puts-black-people-in-danger-new-york-times-staffers-band-together-to-protest-tom-cottons-anti-protest-editorial/
The argument of the staff and internet at large is that Times never should have given the senator the voice to run the column but my argument is that he represents the counter-view to these demonstrations and while it’s my opinion that Cotton will fall on the wrong side of history, it is the purpose of an Op-Ed to be used as a vehicle exactly for this. Cotton is an opposite viewpoint of the editorial of the Times and if the Times is going to be balanced, they must allow both sides to have a view. This is akin to censoring the letters to the editor…well they are censored but they should have a good balance of counter viewpoints to published news and opinions. If the Times is going to staff opinion columnists that are liberal, there is no danger to publishing an op-ed from a republican senator and when staff protests and walks out over the article, this further entrenches the times as a Liberals only publication which is exactly what the Conservative party wanted to happen.
You fell right into their trap and further picked sides. Just like CNN and Fox News, this one op-ed forced NYTimes to pick a side and they will forever be known as the ‘elite newspaper’ as opposed to our national paper of record for all the news that’s fit to print…with an addendum to that motto added to the end being from 2020 on, “…so long as its liberal news”
Disappointing how the party-lines has become so strong that now the Times can’t even post a conservative view without editors losing their jobs. If you want people like me who are centrists to read your paper, you have to publish views from both sides of the aisle even if one side is undeniably wrong in this matter.
I don’t agree with Senator Cotton’s Op-Ed but I’m not supposed to. I also don’t agree with NY Times Staff walking out over it. Allow this op-ed to be referenced a hundred years from now as the ignorance of the far-right Conservative party today than as an opportunity to further squander your centrist reader base. I enjoyed reading the other side because I don’t read ‘alternative media’ blogs but I read it and thought ‘well, I’m not going to support that guy” and left it at that. To hear that people quit their jobs or were fired over this at a national paper is disturbing.