The New York Times Guild, a union that is supposed to represent employees of the New York Times, tweeted out a demand that New York Times columnist Bret Stephens be censored.
Later, the Guild deleted its bizarre demand.
On Friday, Stephens published an op-ed critical of the Times’ own “1619 Project,” a group project led by far-left reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones that has become an ongoing embarrassment for all involved.
The “1619 Project” falsely claims America was not founded in 1776 (fact check: it was). According to Hannah-Jones and company, America was actually founded in 1619, when the first African slave was brought here (fact check: it wasn’t).
What’s more, the “Project” falsely claims the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery (fact check: it wasn’t).
Naturally, all these toxic lies were immediately embraced by Democrats. What’s more, these toxic lies won a Pulitzer, and a number of schools have announced they are taking it on as curriculum.
Unfortunately, for all involved, since its publication, the “1619 Project” has now been so thoroughly debunked, the Times was forced to stealthily remove the project’s most bold assertions, the key points the project was premised on about America’s true founding. Sometime over the past year or so, the Times has secretly removed the premise of the piece, and done so without noting the retractions or explaining the reason behind the retractions. It doesn’t get any sleazier than that.
Over the past few weeks, the scandal only intensified.
After the secret retractions were discovered and Hannah-Jones was caught lying about them, a number of historians came forward to call for the Pulitzer committee to revoke its Pulitzer.
And so Stephens, whose job is to comment on current events, took on his own paper’s “1619 Project” and concluded “for all of its virtues, buzz, spinoffs and a Pulitzer Prize — the 1619 Project has failed.”
No kidding.
The reaction to Stephens’ column from the New York Times Guild was a breathtaking violation of everything a journalists’ union should stand for. The Guild fired off a tweet full or typos and insults demanding Stephens be censored and punished.
“It says a lot about an organization when it breaks its [sic] own rules and goes after one of it’s [sic] own. The act, like the article, reeks,” the tweet read.
The Guild later deleted the tweet, said it went up in error, and apologized, but come on…
LOL pic.twitter.com/cHXtCESM5S
— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) October 12, 2020
This is a journalists’ union snitching on a journalist for “breaking the rules.” This is a journalists’ union demanding that one journalist not be allowed to criticize another — and worse, that those who criticize a colleague need to be censored and punished. This is a journalists’ union calling, not for more freedom for the journalists it represents, but for a suffocating form groupthink to be enforced.
This tells you everything about the problem with the national media today.
The Guild’s first reaction, that first tweet, was so outrageous and antithetical to everything journalism and a journalists’ union is supposed to stand for, the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald wrote a blistering reponse:
A belief in the virtues of free expression was once a cornerstone of the journalistic spirit. Guilds and unions fought against editorial control, not demanded greater amounts be imposed by management. They defended colleagues when they were accused by editorial or corporate bosses of “rules” violations, not publicly tattled and invited, even advocated for, workplace disciplinary measures.
Greenwald also exposed the double standard at work here.
If there are “rules” about not criticizing the work of a fellow journalist, where was the New York Times Guild back in June when New York Times’ opinion editor James Bennet was publicly canceled by the Times’ own staffers after he okayed running an editorial by Republican U.S. Senator Tom Cotton in favor of using the military to stop all these left-wing riots?
Countless Times’ employees used social media to publicly blast Bennet until he was forced out of his job.
The media are so broken.
So, so, so broken.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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