Ya gotta love the sheer self-unawareness at The New York Times.
In the wake of the GOP rebellion in the House that cost GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job, The Times headlined this:
Why Is the Public’s Business at the Mercy of a Few Extremists?
In which the pillar of left-wing media said this:
The U.S. Capitol may be perched on a hill, but it is understandable why so many Americans look down on it.
One of the main reasons is that their Congress, which ought to be a global beacon of liberal values, continues to succumb to self-inflicted paralysis. How else can it be that fewer than a dozen lawmakers from the outer fringes of the Republican Party are holding one of the world’s oldest democracies hostage to their wildest whims?
Got that? A handful of Republican House members - all of them elected by their constituents, unlike the self-appointed editorial writers - “are holding one of the world’s oldest democracies hostage to their wildest whims?”
Hmmmm.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane.
Let’s start with this from CNN's Oliver Darcy back in June of 2020:
New York Times staffers revolt over publication of Tom Cotton op-ed
The story reported:
Staffers at The New York Times expressed dismay Wednesday over the newspaper’s decision to publish an op-ed written by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton that called for the U.S. military to be deployed in cities across the country to help restore order.
The op-ed was published in The Times opinion section, but staffers from both opinion and the newsroom — which operate separate from one another — publicly dissented.
A parade of Times journalists tweeted a screen shot showing the headline of Cotton’s piece, 'Send In the Troops,' with the accompanying words: 'Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.'
New York Times Magazine staff writers Jenna Wortham and Taffy Brodesser-Akner and the paper’s senior editor Kwame Opam were among the journalists who did that. National political reporter Astead W. Herndon tweeted his support for his “colleagues, and particularly the black ones.”
A spokesperson for The Times did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Then, shortly thereafter was this headline at NBC:
New York Times opinion editor resigns amid fallout over op-ed calling on military to quell protests
Vanity Fair wrote up the moment this way:
'Full of Anguish and Pain': A Generational Watershed at the Times as Editorial Page Editor James Bennet Resigns
With the nation convulsed in protest, Times employees fomented a rebellion on Twitter and Slack over an ugly op-ed. Bennet wanted a diversity of opinion—but in a national crisis, words matter.
Got all that? The backbencher staff of the Times revolted at the paper’s management over the publishing of a simple Op-Ed by a conservative Republican U.S. Senator. All hell broke loose. The paper was stricken with, to borrow from their editorial on the House GOP, a “self-inflicted paralysis.” In which the country’s “newspaper of record” was, to borrow again from that Times editorial, held “hostage to their wildest whims?” James Bennet was their Kevin McCarthy. He was cast out to appease the radicals.
Now lets go back to the Times latest thoughts on a similar moment when 8 GOP House members revolted against their leadership. Again, the Times headlined this of the GOP House fight:
Why Is the Public’s Business at the Mercy of a Few Extremists?
Yet for some strange reason when all that turmoil over the Senator Cotton wracked the Times there was no headline asking:
Why Is the New York Times’s Business at the Mercy of a Few Extremists?
There is an answer, of course.
That would be because the people who run the Times have not the least sense of self-awareness. Or irony.
Imagine that.
