# What the fuck is going on at the New York Times?! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 4, 2020, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038 "2020-06-04T12:21:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/261 "2020-06-10T00:29:42Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > I meant every word I’ve said–including my democratic affiliation (and for Christ’s sake, why would I even lie about that? I mean, what would be the point? Because it’s a standard lie. “I’m _totally_ a Democrat and left winger, it’s merely a _coincidence_ that everything I say sounds exactly like what a right winger would say.” > [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > And lavish praise on the Trump voters? You bet I do. Those guys fix my car, patch up our apartment, vaccinate my family, put out fires in our neighborhood, keep the place safe, and serve in the military. They’re good people. They go out of their way for others, even when they don’t have to. Their churches feed the poor. Their work helps the community. Nonsense; they’re malignant monsters. They are bigots who hurt people whenever they can, lie, cheat and steal whenever the opportunity occurs, and belong to the sort of churches who think charity is evil. And you are simply another right wing scumball trying to pretend being something that they are not. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/262 "2020-06-10T01:03:29Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > Big mouth, huh? That’s rich coming from you. You don’t have any problem talking shit about Trump voters on the board, and I don’t see you holding anyone on your side to task, but I’m the braggart for disagreeing. And when did I ever claim to be an activist? I do what I can for whom I can. I don’t brag about it, because I like doing it. Really? You fooled me. You talk shit like you know fucking everything. > [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > And lavish praise on the Trump voters? You bet I do. Those guys fix my car, patch up our apartment, vaccinate my family, put out fires in our neighborhood, keep the place safe, and serve in the military. They’re good people. They go out of their way for others, even when they don’t have to. Their churches feed the poor. Their work helps the community. Right because Trump supporters are the salt of the earth and uniquely skilled at blue collar labor. And I’ve never known a democrat who gave a damn about serving the community. Selfish fucks, those libs. Any excuse to rabble rouse the cops. I’ll give my son a call and tell him to quit the US Navy and come home because the Trump supporters have it covered. > [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > What’s the last halfway strenuous thing you ever did that didn’t involve posting on this place with a mouthful of nachos? Hill sprints, chin-up sets, hanging ab work, shoulders and arms. You? > [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > I might disagree with Trump supporters politically, but I will trust them in a crisis situation long before I trust anyone on this board. No doubt you’ll blend right in > [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > No need to go on at length. You’ve got me. I don’t know. It’s too late. You show me how to unscramble the egg, I’ll show you how to fix this clusterfuck. The differences between us, **QuickSilver** is that I don’t blame everyone but myself and I don’t give people a pass just because I happen to agree with them on some stuff. I can’t blame myself for Trump because I didn’t vote for him. I blame those who did. I blame fellow libs plenty for how quickly they line up for a circular firing squad. I blame them for lacking the strength of their convictions to nominate Bernie and then for acting like a bunch of petulant children and whining about getting behind Biden. I blame liberals for falling in love instead of falling in line. What I don’t blame liberals for is having a sense of decency that extends beyond their immediate tribe and for always striving for a more just society. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/263 "2020-06-10T01:30:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it’s a standard lie. > > “I’m _totally_ a Democrat and left winger, it’s merely a _coincidence_ that everything I say sounds exactly like what a right winger would say.” > > …And you are simply another right wing scumball trying to pretend being something that they are not. I must have read a few dozen posts by that account’s writer, over a number of days, and never for an instant doubted that it’s a pro-Trump account. There’s not a single sentence in any of those posts that would have been written by an actual Democrat. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/264 "2020-06-10T02:10:55Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > No. I think we’re losing. I think we’re stupid, distracted, unrealistic idiots without a real plan or a real candidate for 2020. I think we are intellectually dishonest, short-sighted reactionaries who can’t see the train until it’s three inches in front of our face. I think our debating skills are weak and that our focus is weaker. I think we have consistently mischaracterized and underestimated our enemies and disowned our allies over petty, nitpicking semantics and intellectual differences. I think we have muddled the difference between easily identifiable issues that we could come together and work on for short-term results with systematic problems which have plagued this nation since its inception and will take years if not decades of concentrated effort to root out and have no realistic short-term solution. I think we have given ourselves up to sophistry, hyperbole, and emotion over reason, and I think that this has cost us whatever chances we had (and we _did_ have them), to beat the bad guys. > > I think we have played into our opponents’ hands, taken their bait, let them frame the issues while we react instead of respond, danced to their music, and squandered our chance to make any sort of difference in 2020. > > The problem with that, **Chingon** , is that I’m a Democrat. > [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > Fair enough. You can believe what you want. > > You–and this board–have become a bunch of intellectually dishonest, whiny, sensitive assholes who will not listen to dissenting opinions. You play the bait-and-ban game with conservatives, pat yourselves on the back for your genius, and go on to make the same goddamned arguments and the same goddamned complaints and the same goddamned mistakes over and over again. You make up new definitions of words to explain away your double standards, twist the facts to suit your pet theories, and then have the nerve to wonder why you always seem to lose. > > You are shortsighted idiots, and your candidate–the guy who is going to save the United States from tyranny, or whatever you tell each other tyranny means–is a septuagenarian loser, liar, sexual harasser, and ineffectual fool, and yet, you will stand up for him, throw whoever comes forward with accusations of harassment right under the party bus, and carry on with a 900-page thread about how horrible Trump is. Without taking one solitary step to clean your own house. Without taking one _moment_ to wonder, “Hey . . . I wonder if it’s _me_.” > > You are going to lose this November. Wanna know how I know that? Because June 2020 looks exactly the same as June 2016, and you are making the same dishonest arguments, sticking your heads in the same ground, and refusing to believe the same people who are telling you to wake the hell up and deal with the world as it really is. In the next forum over, the same people who badmouth whatever conservatives are left on this board are busy kissing the ass of some Antifa fuckstick who waxes rhapsodic on burning down the businesses of black people to make a point that most of us have already gotten. You think kissing Antifa’s ass is going to help in November? Really? And when you wind up with the shit end of the stick _yet again_, it’s not going to be _your_ fault. Oh, noooooo. It’s going to be mine. It’s going to be Trump’s. It’s going to be the electoral college’s and society’s and the white patriarchy. But not your fault. It’s never about you guys on this board. > > I meant every word I’ve said–including my democratic affiliation (and for Christ’s sake, why would I even lie about that? I mean, what would be the point? Oh, never mind, it just doesn’t jibe with your preconceived notions of what the world is, that’s why.), and I stand by every word I typed above–and anywhere else on these forums going all the way back to 2003. In that time, I have not lied once. Nor have I ever resorted to the word game to prove an idiotic point that doesn’t make sense in the real world. I’ve admitted when I was wrong, apologized when I was out of line, and thanked people for teaching me stuff. > > So what do you have to teach me? What do you have to teach anyone? Underneath your elegant little columns about sweet-fuck-all (and I will admit that they’re _very_ articulate), you’re just like the Freepers. You’re beautiful on the Internet, but you are absolute _shit_ in the real world. Well . . . in that case, you’re _not_ like the Freepers. Those old-assed yokels actually leave the house and get stuff done. Your spelling might be better, but you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are. > > And while we’re throwing around accusations, I think that anyone on this board who tells me that they’re political activists and actively working to put Biden in is a fucking liar. I think you’re full of shit. I think that if you’re political activists, I’m Malcolm X. You don’t talk like activists. You don’t argue like activists. You don’t have the practical outlook God gave gravel. You don’t seem to understand that truth–the kind of truth that helps you form arguments and get things done–is never ever convenient. You are Internet warriors and chat room orators, and that is _all_ you are. > > You guys aren’t Trump voters. I might not like Trump, but those guys are tougher, smarter, more effective, and more willing to get things done than _anyone_ on this board will ever be. Face it. Trump is an asshole, but they’re better than you. And they’re going to win. And it’s going to be your fault. > > Your move, chief. …LOL. And people think that I’M the one about to “pop a gasket.” If Trump wins again this year: and there is a very good chance that he will, it won’t be because of this nonsense you are posting here. It will be because of things like this: [https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1270433009033007106](https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1270433009033007106) Trump isn’t “better than us.” And if he wins it won’t be because I posted something you disagreed with on an internet messageboard. Its because they will be lying, it will because they will cheat. More people oppose Trump than support him. But they’ve stacked the deck and you need to recognize that. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/265 "2020-06-10T03:11:51Z")
“You are going to lose”, not “We are going to lose”. You’re a Democrat. Yeah, right. _ **Chingon** beat me to it. Guess I should’ve read the next page before responding._ ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/266 "2020-06-10T13:33:45Z")
I do wish that we could finally get to the bottom of the sentiment that claims that because Trump supporters have been called out for their various deplorable socially and intellectually regressive positions, this will somehow mean that more people will vote for Trump than for someone who supports more liberal positions. It’s a laughable empty threat of, “I’m Warning You… if you’re not nicer to me, I’m going to vote extra hard for Trump!” There are clearly ~63M voters who are almost certainly going to double down on Trumpism. We have to accept that. There is no evidence to suggest that number has grown and I don’t see how ridiculing Trump and his MAGAcult is going to motivate them more than they are already motivated. Fortunately, there are many more voters who do not support Trumpism. Some of whom will stay home for various reasons. Including, no doubt, being cut out of the voting process due to deliberate right-wing election interference. So Trump may very well snatch another win, but not because liberals said mean things about Trump & MAGATS. So yeah, let’s hear a good fucking explanation for why we should not be critical of Trump supporters, or come up with a better line of argument than the ‘_poor, forgotten, salt of the earth, victims of liberalism_’ bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/267 "2020-06-10T15:31:27Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I do wish that we could finally get to the bottom of the sentiment that claims that because Trump supporters have been called out for their various deplorable socially and intellectually regressive positions, this will somehow mean that more people will vote for Trump than for someone who supports more liberal positions. > > It’s a laughable empty threat of, “I’m Warning You… if you’re not nicer to me, I’m going to vote extra hard for Trump!” > > There are clearly ~63M voters who are almost certainly going to double down on Trumpism. We have to accept that. There is no evidence to suggest that number has grown and I don’t see how ridiculing Trump and his MAGAcult is going to motivate them more than they are already motivated. > > Fortunately, there are many more voters who do not support Trumpism. Some of whom will stay home for various reasons. Including, no doubt, being cut out of the voting process due to deliberate right-wing election interference. So Trump may very well snatch another win, but not because liberals said mean things about Trump & MAGATS. > > So yeah, let’s hear a good fucking explanation for why we should not be critical of Trump supporters, or come up with a better line of argument than the ‘_poor, forgotten, salt of the earth, victims of liberalism_’ bullshit. Agreed. It’s Trump’s voters who are a large part of the problem. On that note, I think that part of the problem is that things like AM radio, Fox News, and other outlets have created an information bubble or ‘safe space’ for them. That’s certainly not to say that they would have been liberal otherwise, but I think part of Trump’s base has been energized by the normalization of wingnut ideas and conspiracy theories. That’s why I have a problem with the Times decision to post Cotton’s op-ed. Not because I thought it presented Cotton in a positive light or that it might persuade his opposition (i.e. us). The problem is that the Times, which is widely regarded as one of the most recognizable and credible institutions in the free press, is now offering a venue for radical thought that should otherwise be dismissed out of hand. Merely posting authoritarian missives by the likes of Cotton takes fringe ideas and puts them into the mainstream. Sometimes, even entertaining a debate is itself destructive. Debating whether we should extend civil rights protection is itself a harmful idea because proposing the debate itself encourages people to challenge the legitimacy of that idea. It doesn’t matter whether a majority of people can counter and stand up to such challenges. Encouraging law enforcement agencies and the military to act as a suppressive force against people exercising the most basic of civil liberties is inevitably encouraging some people to question whether those liberties should exist. If my crazy uncle wants to type in all caps on Facebook that liberals should be locked up, that’s one thing. Printing it in the Times or the Washington Post or inviting someone to say the same on CNN is quite another. The Times’ news staff get it - their publication should never be in that position. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/268 "2020-06-10T15:38:23Z")
So in one sentence, you say that Trump voters live in an information bubble (and you say that’s a bad thing) and then a few sentences later, you seem to want liberals to live in one as well? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/269 "2020-06-10T16:48:59Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Agreed. > > It’s Trump’s voters who are a large part of the problem. Right. But let’s see what our fellow long time democrat,\*\* Linty Fresh\*\* has to say about his beleaguered Trump friends. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/270 "2020-06-10T17:05:45Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > So in one sentence, you say that Trump voters live in an information bubble (and you say that’s a bad thing) and then a few sentences later, you seem to want liberals to live in one as well? Point to where I said that I want liberals to live in an information bubble. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/271 "2020-06-11T03:31:01Z")
Biden’s going to win, and Democrats will probably retake the Senate. Which is awesome. That’s totally beside the point of whether the staff revolt at the NYT was a good thing (it wasn’t) or whether management should have caved and sacked Bennet (they definitely should not have). It’s not wrong because it will lose us the election (it won’t), it’s wrong because it’s wrong. ETA: And I’m canceling my NYT subscription as soon as I can figure out how to do so in a way that ensures they know \*why \*I am canceling. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/272 "2020-06-11T03:48:55Z")
Personally, I think they were right to fire Bennet (or he was right to resign, whichever it was). He admitted or claimed after the uproar started that he never read the OpEd piece in question and that’s bullshit; I think the opinion page editor should have read every OpEd that’s slated to run, and probably a good chunk of the rejects. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/273 "2020-06-11T04:01:31Z")
Here’s my interaction with the “Customer Care Representative”, by the name of “Raymel”, just now. Raymel’s side of the conversation is in bold. > [@](#): > > **Pardon me If I sound intrusive, but your feedback matters to us, I must ask, which editorial piece you found that wasn’t of your liking? No worries, I’ll still proceed with the cancellation for you, but I want to get your insight as to why.** > > It’s actually the opposite > > I am a Democrat and do not like Tom Cotton, but I believe it’s very important to hear a diverse set of opinions. > > So the revolt among NYT staffers, and the subsequent caving by management and firing of James Bennet, has soured me on the Times. > > I would never cancel because I didn’t like an editorial! I am exactly opposite to that kind of opinion. > > \*\*I understand and thank you for taking the time to share this with me. The aim of our Opinion coverage is promote discussion from people with a diversity of opinions and ideas. The Opinion section is separate from the newsroom. We also believe in the spirit of open debate and welcome reaction to anything that we publish. > \*\* > That’s a canned response that doesn’t understand what I wrote at all. > > I agree with open debate and a diversity of ideas! > > That’s why I’m mad about James Bennet being fired and the newspaper apologizing for printing the Cotton editorial. Sigh. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/274 "2020-06-11T04:06:29Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Here’s my interaction with the “Customer Care Representative”, by the name of “Raymel”, just now. Raymel’s side of the conversation is in bold. So you lied and told him you were a “Democrat”? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/275 "2020-06-11T04:39:40Z")
That’s not a lie, you shit-for-brains. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/276 "2020-06-11T06:03:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > That’s not a lie, you shit-for-brains. Oh sorry. I thought you were a Republican. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/277 "2020-06-11T06:21:58Z")
Sooo…I advocated for the nomination of moderate, electable Democrats in the presidential primaries over the span of nearly six thousand Daily Kos comments in [2003](https://www.dailykos.com/comments/144/3079#comment_3079), [2007](https://www.dailykos.com/comments/380019/13395359#comment_13395359), and [2015](https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1433272/57948503#comment_57960661), because…why, exactly? What’s the secret-Republican angle there? :dubious: It’s not enough to react to my posts with “I’m a Democrat, and I don’t like what \*\*SlackerInc \*\*has to say, so I refuse to believe he’s a Democrat too”. You have to have some kind of plausible motive for this alleged longterm “deep cover” operation. What you are engaging in is the polar opposite of Occam’s Razor, which would tell you that I’m quite obviously just a Democrat you don’t like. Why that’s so hard for you to grasp, I can’t say. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/278 "2020-06-11T06:38:52Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > Big mouth, huh? That’s rich coming from you. You don’t have any problem talking shit about Trump voters on the board, and I don’t see you holding anyone on your side to task, but I’m the braggart for disagreeing. And when did I ever claim to be an activist? I do what I can for whom I can. I don’t brag about it, because I like doing it. > > And lavish praise on the Trump voters? You bet I do. Those guys fix my car, patch up our apartment, vaccinate my family, put out fires in our neighborhood, keep the place safe, and serve in the military. They’re good people. They go out of their way for others, even when they don’t have to. Their churches feed the poor. Their work helps the community. > > What’s the last halfway strenuous thing you ever did that didn’t involve posting on this place with a mouthful of nachos? I might disagree with Trump supporters politically, but I will trust them in a crisis situation long before I trust anyone on this board. > > No need to go on at length. You’ve got me. I don’t know. It’s too late. You show me how to unscramble the egg, I’ll show you how to fix this clusterfuck. The differences between us, **QuickSilver** is that I don’t blame everyone but myself and I don’t give people a pass just because I happen to agree with them on some stuff. Hey! If you need some businesses torched or stores looted these are your guys and gals! That 65” tv isn’t going to carry itself. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/279 "2020-06-11T06:40:37Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it’s a standard lie. > > “I’m _totally_ a Democrat and left winger, it’s merely a _coincidence_ that everything I say sounds exactly like what a right winger would say.” > > Nonsense; they’re malignant monsters. They are bigots who hurt people whenever they can, lie, cheat and steal whenever the opportunity occurs, and belong to the sort of churches who think charity is evil. > > And you are simply another right wing scumball trying to pretend being something that they are not. If that were true, and you know it’s not, how is it that there are any on the left left? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038/280 "2020-06-11T07:11:52Z")
The NYT’s Ben Smith was remarkably candid in his interview on the Slate Gist podcast today. He said that the reason black employees stated that they were endangered by the Cotton op-ed was because the union advised them that they could not get in trouble for expressing concerns about a workplace safety issue, whereas a general political complaint would be against The New York Times code of conduct for social media. He also said that readers these days cannot really tell the difference between straight news articles and stuff from the Opinion section, which is news to me; and that unlike the old model when they were a mass publication where they had to keep advertisers happy by covering the spectrum of political opinion for everyone in a news market, these days the predominant priority in terms of their bottom line is to not piss off too many of their subscribers. That makes sense but I find it profoundly sad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-york-times/855038.md?page=15)