New York Times opinion editor resigns

[robkelk]

The New York Times' editorial page editor resigned Sunday after the newspaper disowned an opinion piece ... and it was later revealed he hadn't read the piece prior to publication.

I've deliberately not included the author and topic of the editorial in question, because it doesn't matter (except that everything matters at the newspaper of record for the entire USA). What matters is that the editorial page editor resigned after it came out that he didn't do his job.

Story here

[Black Aeronaut]

Ooooh. OUCH.

That's an absolutely fantastic flub of epic proportions.

[Labster]

I mean, yeah, but the author and topic do matter, because it was a US Senator calling for violence against American citizens.  I mean, if it was a House member, I could see it.  There are 435 of those suckers and at least 20 of them are dead weight, but there are only 100 Senators and I thought we all agreed that Ted Cruz was the worst one and Rand Paul the annoying one.  It turns out another one is worse?

Just because the act of publishing something is newsworthy doesn't mean you should publish.  I wonder how much grief we could have saved if the news outlets never published Elliot Roger's manifesto.  It's a known vector for Virgin-Related Memetic Disorder.

But on this guy getting resigned, he goes from the not-reading to the post hoc public statements about how important it is other opinions to readers and other sanctimony.  And then he finally reads the thing and agrees to apologize.  Oopsies.

The first mistake was bad but forgivable, it's always the cover up where scorn is truly earned.

[Black Aeronaut]

Heheh.  Insert cartoon character going, "C'mon!  What are you worked up over!?  It's not that bad!"  *Opens the door to look inside - we don't see it, but someone inside is screaming, "THERE'S BUTTER ON MY FACE!!!"  He then shuts it and, shamefaced, turns back to everyone else.*  "Fuck."

Tom Cotton is something special.  While Ted is nominally in the same camp as Mike Pence when it comes to religion and business, Tom Cotton takes it to a whole new level with the BS he spouts - the shit is so outlandish that most of us have learned not to pay much attention to what he says.

Ergo, you don't often hear much about him.  Except in cases where someone slips up and leave the mic open for him to start going off on his ultra-right-wing diatribes.  Like what happened at the NY Times.

[Labster]

If you need any more evidence that the New York Times has lost its way, look to their policy to "out" the subjects of their reporting, opening them to losing their job and threats of violence.  Possibly it could end his career.  Except in this case the subject's not gay, just a blogger about psychology.  So I guess that's okay to the people at the NYT, because it's not a left-wing cause to protect people like Scott Alexander.

https://www.dontdoxscottalexander.com

To me this is the same issue as the gay rights cause, because everyone has the right to choose their own identity, and to maintain other identities.  As long as that right isn't abused to harm other people -- as in the case for all other rights -- we need to let people be who they want to be.