In terms of the woke inmates running the asylum, the New York Times has been a notable example of what goes wrong when far-leftist orthodoxy takes over once-reputable institutions. The nonsense revealed by Bari Weiss in her resignation letter from the Gray Lady confirmed what many observers assumed was true. The newsroom revolt over the publication of an op-ed from a sitting U.S. Senator put an exclamation point on the lunacy that had taken hold.
Now, thanks to former NYT opinions staffer Adam Rubenstein — who edited Sen. Tom Cotton's op-ed responding to leftist BLM riots during the "mostly peaceful" summer of 2020 — we have a new anecdote that shows the HR culture at the Times is even more absurd than a satire writer could concoct and another inside account on the insane reaction to publishing Cotton's quite mainstream opinion on the riots destroying American cities and livelihoods.
In an essay for The Atlantic, Rubenstein explains how he realized — almost straight out of the gate after being hired at the Times in 2019 — things were not going in a sane direction:
On one of my first days at The New York Times, I went to an orientation with more than a dozen other new hires. We had to do an icebreaker: Pick a Starburst out of a jar and then answer a question. My Starburst was pink, I believe, and so I had to answer the pink prompt, which had me respond with my favorite sandwich.
This exercise, while the stuff of groan-worthy and often-dreaded HR "team building" ventures, doesn't seem problematic on its face. But Rubenstein quickly found it to be something of a trap:
Russ & Daughters’ Super Heebster came to mind, but I figured mentioning a $19 sandwich wasn’t a great way to win new friends. So I blurted out, “The spicy chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A,” and considered the ice broken.
Perhaps overthought, but points to Rubenstein for engaging in good faith with his new colleagues. Unfortunately, what he believed to be honest participation immediately backfired:
The HR representative leading the orientation chided me: “We don’t do that here. They hate gay people.” People started snapping their fingers in acclamation. I hadn’t been thinking about the fact that Chick-fil-A was transgressive in liberal circles for its chairman’s opposition to gay marriage. “Not the politics, the chicken,” I quickly said, but it was too late. I sat down, ashamed.
With that display of outlandish leftist ideological intolerance as a starting note, it's unsurprising that the intellectual inmates at the Times lost the plot, jumped the shark, etc. when the paper ran Cotton's op-ed. As Guy rightly noted, these anecdotes are more outlandish than what a professional satirist could make up.
genuinely beyond satire https://t.co/Eo60peHHIa
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) February 26, 2024
"It was clear to me then and it’s clear to me now that the fight over Cotton’s op-ed was never about safety, or the facts, or the editing, or even the argument, but control of the paper and who had it," Rubenstein's worth-the-read essay concludes. "In the end, all that mattered was that an example had been made."
I took notes.https://t.co/zVLlVMxVQM
— Adam Rubenstein (@RubensteinAdam) February 26, 2024