Bari Weiss Resigns from New York Times

From Elahe Izadi and Jeremy Barr's 7-14-20 Washington Post article entitled "Bari Weiss Resigns from New York Times, Says ‘Twitter Has Become Its Ultimate Editor’":

New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss, who attracted considerable controversy both internally and externally, resigned from the newspaper this week, the company confirmed Tuesday.

In a lengthy note about her Monday departure, Weiss criticized the Times for caving to the whims of critics on Twitter and for not standing up for her after she said she was “bullied” by Times staffers.

“The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people,” she wrote. “Nowadays, standing up for principle at the paper does not win plaudits. It puts a target on your back.”

To read Izadi and Barr's entire article, click HERE.

What follows is a brief excerpt from Weiss' resignation letter:

...the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. 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.

Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. 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. 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...

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

To read Weiss' entire letter, click HERE.