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Who edits The New York Times? This is not, at least at first glance, a particularly complicated question. Dean Baquet has been the executive editor of the newspaper of record since 2014, a period of profound growth, when the company amassed six million subscribers (it had about 1.5 million the year Baquet took over). While The Washington Post has made strides in recent years, the Times is still an agenda-setting newspaper like no other. In recent years it has become an industry-swallowing behemoth, hiring whoever it wants whenever it wants, while dominating a number of media formatsaudio, visual, and, of course, text.

But the question Who edits The New York Times? has taken on a different dimension in recent years. While the obsession over the Times foibles and fuck-ups has long been a cottage industry, it is now firmly entrenched in the culture wars. According to the anti-woke contingent, the Times is increasingly run by a pitchfork-wielding mob of scolds demanding ideological purity and adherence to faddish identity politics. Last year, in the wake of a controversial op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton calling for troops to quell violence associated with the George Floyd protests, the mob was able to force out the papers opinion editor (who was pushed out) and a controversial employee (who resigned). This mob, the argument goes, is holding the rest of the paper hostage. Baquet is only nominally in charge.

On Friday, there were anti-woke howls across the internet after the Times announced that Donald McNeil, a prize-winning health care reporter, was leaving the paper he had worked at since 1976. McNeil had recently received widespread acclaim for his reporting on Covid-19, but a report from The Daily Beast two weeks ago alleged that he had repeated a racial slur in front of teenagers while accompanying a high school trip to Peru. (The Times apparently sends its reporters on these trips, which cost $5,500 each, as guides. Fancy!) McNeil had initially been given a reprieve by Baquet but was pushed out after 150 staff members objected to his light treatment in a letter to management. Here was another smoking gun: The paper of record devouring its own on command from a legion of woke, illiberal scolds.

See more here:
Can We Stop Obsessing Over Every Personnel Decision Made by The New York Times? - The New Republic