Bari Weiss, a writer for the opinion section of The New York Times newspaper, published a letter on her website announcing her resignation and explaining in detail the reasons that led her to decide.
Weiss said the reason she was hired to work at The New York Times in 2017 was to “bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives, and others.”
But she said the newspaper no longer has the atmosphere and procedures for discovering the truth collectively, exchanging different views, with the possibility of dissent, and that stories are told from the perspective of a very narrow audience.
Weiss said that in her eagerness to travel this road, her own colleagues have called her a Nazi and a racist.
The controversy began when Weiss published in her column an opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). In the article Cotton suggests the use of the armed forces to end the riots caused by the death of George Floyd.
After the article was published, the Times did a sort of mea culpa and Weiss said there was a “civil war” brewing at the paper, according to Fox News.
Weiss noted that the newspaper published an unrepentant interview by Cheryl Strayed with Alice Walker who is openly anti-Semitic. She also said she received comments from her colleagues as “again writing about Jews” and that for the Times to achieve “inclusiveness” she had to be rooted out.
In her lengthy letter, Bari Weiss describes the “woke” or politically correct environment that prevails at the paper and why this represents an obstacle to true journalism.
Criticism of the Times for the fairness that a media of its stature should have, has been pouring in from all sides. President Trump has published many tweets attacking “The Lady” because of the constant attacks on his administration. The president calls it “fake news” and associates the newspaper with “partner in crime” the Democrats.
When the scandal known as “Pizzagate” hit Hillary Clinton and her associates in 2016, The New York Times came to the defense of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign manager, and the official narrative that it is a conspiracy theory now appears in the first 200 Google searches, despite the ample existing evidence of child sex abuse committed by John Podesta and others.