The New York Times op-ed by Tom Cotton had two major flaws. First, it was written by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who is despised by the left as a right-wing fascist, Second, it argued for bringing in the military to thwart ongoing riots since it appeared that local government was unwilling to take action.
Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.
On the other side, it was the view of a United States senator and was shared by many Americans who were outraged that little was being done to stop rioting, looting and violence in American cities. Of course, those who condemned this “lawlessness” and “anarchy” were just as hated as Cotton, rendering their views irrelevant.
But it wasn’t the criticism at the Times of its publication of Cotton’s op-ed that presented the problem. After all, the point of op-eds is to raise controversial positions and, in the ordinary course, expose those views to criticism as being dangerous, stupid or wrong. I criticize Times op-eds all the time, and there’s no reason why anyone else shouldn’t do the same. But ultimately, the condemnation of the op-ed morphed into a condemnation of James Bennett, the editorial page editor, for having allowed this unacceptable view to enjoy the bright light of appearing in the paper of record.
It wasn’t just that people disagreed with Cotton, vehemently or otherwise. But New York Times’ black staffers made a very specific claim, one that defies debate or challenge.
Many Times staffers, however, forwent the rigor of argumentation and tweeted out the following line — or something similar — to express their disgust: “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.” The formulation came from the internal group Black@NYT and received the blessing of the NewsGuild of New York as “legally protected speech because it focused on workplace safety,” Smith, then the Times’s media columnist, reported at the time.
At the time, I rejected this claim.
After the “news” fiasco at the New York Times over the publication of the Tom Cotton op-ed, with staff complaining that “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger,” an assertion that apparently makes sense in the twisted minds of indoctrinated children, the Times capitulated to the angry whims of their dumbest people. James Bennett’s big score was turned on its head, no matter how many clicks the op-ed got.
Trying to think through the connection between the Times publishing Cotton’s op-ed and the claim by black staffers that it put them in “danger” is a fool’s errand. There is no rational connection, and there never needed to be. If it espoused a position that they found repugnant, then what more was needed? Was it that they feared mobs of violent “Antifa” attacking the New York Times building, bombing it, burning it, slaughtering the staff as they ran out of the flaming building, all because the New York Times published Cotton’s op-ed? Maybe. Who knows? It’s not as if anyone would be permitted to question what the hell they were talking about.
So James Bennett became the sacrificial lamb for having not prevented this debacle from happening. Washington Post media critic, Eric Wemple, said nothing at the time.
To date, the lesson from the set-to — that publishing a senator arguing that federal troops could be deployed against rioters is unacceptable — will forever circumscribe what issues opinion sections are allowed to address. It’s also long past time to ask why more people who claim to uphold journalism and free expression — including, um, the Erik Wemple Blog — didn’t speak out then in Bennet’s defense.
It’s because we were afraid to.
Why was he (they?) afraid? What was he (they?) afraid of? Perhaps he’ll explain further in a follow up. But what he does is come out and say what was obvious at the time.
The Twitter chain claiming “danger” to Times staffers suffered from the same journalistic failings leveled at the op-ed. It was an exercise in manipulative hyperbole brilliantly calibrated for immediate impact.
Even now, this characterization of the black Times’ staffers claiming the op-ed put their lives in danger gives rise to outrage of the gnats of twitter, for whom any denigration of the cries of black people is, by definition, racist, because in their minds, it’s racist to expect a rational explanation from black people. And Wemple asked whether they were sticking with their story.
The Erik Wemple Blog has asked about 30 Times staffers whether they still believe their “danger” tweets and whether there was any merit in Bennet’s retort. Not one of them replied with an on-the-record defense. Such was the depth of conviction behind a central argument in l’affaire Cotton.
Whether this means they now look back at their “manipulative hyperbole” and realize if was deceitful, infantile and/or utter malarkey is unclear. What is clear is that no one wanted to come out and argue why it was real and put their name to it. This is completely understandable since the magnificent benefit of adoration for faux victimization would no longer attach to this claim not that the “heat of passion” had waned.
But for Wemple, and for WaPo for publishing Wemple’s story, does this mean that he suddenly found the guts to brave the angry mob, or that the excesses of this mindless swarm of idiot children have brought grownups to the realization that they have failed the children by letting them cry “danger” and being too afraid to call “bullshit”?
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