Journalism That Serves The Party Line

The New York Times released today a staff memo announcing upcoming reforms to placate the woke mob. You can read the whole thing by clicking on Ben Smith’s tweet:

And @nytimes just emailed staff with plans to create “a more modern news organization that benefits from the wisdom of a larger and far more diverse staff.” pic.twitter.com/qLg9A231Xa

— Ben Smith (@benyt) June 18, 2020

Here’s a part that jumped out at me:

This is a perfectly Orwellian document, in context of what generated it. Remember that the woke mob within the Times raised hell because they didn’t want the Times publishing the op-ed of a Republican senator whose view on deploying the military to riot zones was shared by over half of Americans. Now, under the new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion regime, the newsroom is going to be “a place where journalists can debate stories, exchange ideas, and candidly disagree, challenge and learn from one another.”

Read that again, without laughing.

About those bulleted points, they mean exactly the opposite of what they appear to mean. Under the new regime, stories in the Times will be less diverse. They will be more univocal, from the Left. This is about Managing The Narrative.

Here’s the thing: from my own newsroom experience, I’d bet that the newsroom executives issuing this edict (publisher A.G. Sulzberger, executive editor Dean Baquet, and two others) really do believe this Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion cant. You would find more cardinals of the Roman Curia who disbelieved the Nicene Creed than senior American journalism executives who doubted the Holy Trinity of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.

I wonder when the Times is going to start keeping up with the Washington Post, and publishing stories about ordinary people who said or did stupid things at a private party in the past? I am sure there are plenty of progressive propagandists in the Times newsroom ready and eager to straighten out the crooked timber of humanity by collective condemnation, public humiliation, and professional ruin.

 

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