On one of my first days at The New York Times, I went to an orientation with more than a dozen other new hires. James Bennet, the Times’ editorial-page editor, and James Dao, the op-ed editor, were committed to publishing heterodox views. Our mandate was to present readers with “intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion,” as the Times’ founder, Adolph Ochs, put it in 1896. I deleted several objectionable sentences and cleared up factual questions: all pretty standard in the work of an op-ed editor. Caitlin Flanagan: Colleges are lying to their studentsIn the years preceding the Cotton op-ed, the Times had published op-eds by authoritarians including Muammar Qaddafi, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Vladimir Putin.

Source: New York Times February 26, 2024 12:39 UTC