The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

Factions of the media were also taking sides. After the New York Times ran an article by a Republican senator calling for military intervention, an in-house dispute broke out between the old-school liberal journalists who believed in diversity of opinion, and the mostly younger staff members who saw the article as tantamount to violence. The opinion editor James Bennet was eventually fired and replaced with Katie Kingsbury. Her first act in her new role was to issue a directive to her staff: ‘Anyone who sees any piece of Opinion journalism, headlines, social posts, photos – you name it – that gives you the slightest pause, please call or text me immediately’. With journalists being openly invited to spy on their colleagues and report them for wrongthink, it was safe to say that the New York Times’s 170-year-old reputation for liberalism had come to an abrupt end.