August 14, 2019

NY Times demotes deputy editor for accidentally offending the Left; "offender" grovels

The story below will probably strike many readers as trivial, since it's about why a deputy editor for the NY Times was demoted, and banned by the Times from using Twitter as a condition of keeping even his lower-ranking job.

I thought it was worth posting because one rarely sees written evidence of the Left punishing its own members for failing to conform to its demands.  And to have the evidence published by the Left itself should make it hard to question its accuracy, eh?  So here's the story as CNN related it:
(CNN Business) Jonathan Weisman, deputy Washington editor for The New York Times, has been demoted after a pair of incidents in which he ignited controversy on Twitter, the newspaper said Tuesday.

"Jonathan Weisman met with [Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet] today and apologized for his recent serious lapses in judgment. As a consequence of his actions, he has been demoted and will no longer be overseeing the team that covers Congress or be active on social media
Got it?  "...a pair of incidents in which he ignited controversy." So what did he do that so offended his bosses at the Times?  Did he criticize socialism or open borders?  Ask how the Dems planned to cover the cost of "erasing" all student loans?  Hint that there just might have been something goofy about the FBI joke of an "investigation" of Hilliary's email server?
 
Well, something just as serious:  He said some outrageous things in two "tweets."  But the Left was also demanding that he be punished for writing a perfectly accurate headline.

Saying Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are from the Midwest is like saying Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) is from Texas or John Lewis (D-Atlanta) is from the Deep South.  C’mon.
Outrageous!  So you can see why the Times was absolutely forced to demote Weisman, right?

Wait...you say you don't see why that statement is offensive?  Yeah, I didn't either.  You have to be on the Left to pick up on the dog-whistle there.  See, a senator from Missouri had tweeted "Free stuff from the government does not play well in the Midwest.”  Whereupon a charmer named Waleed Shahid showed typical leftist "logic," tweeting "Medicare and Social Security are both technically 'free stuff' and they play very well," and that both Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib represented midwestern states.

Both those things are "Free"?  Really?  Gee, in that case I wonder where all those "SSRI" and "Medicare" deductions on every single paycheck I ever got were going, eh?  But no matter--to a leftist, it's free.

Weisman then responded with the tweet above.  By comparing the two to Doggett and Lewis he clearly meant that the two leftist Dems were hardly representative of midwestern values, but the Left went nuts, screaming "raaaacism."  Weisman quickly deleted the tweet.

Then last week Weisman offended the Left again when he noted that the same radical-Left Justice Democrats that drafted AOC announced that they were backing a candidate to oppose an "African-American Democrat" in the primary.  This is highly unusual, since political parties that already have the huge advantage of incumbency rarely want to defeat their own office-holder.

Recognizing the unusual nature of the move, Weisman tweeted,
Justice Democrats has backed another primary challenger, this one seeking to unseat an African-American Democrat, Joyce Beatty, who represents Columbus.
See??  Outrageous!  You can easily see why the Times... Wait, you don't, do ya.  Yeah, me neither.  The tweet is perfectly factual and seemingly uncritical.  So was there more to it?  Well, 40 minutes later the new challenger tweeted "I am also black."

Ah, NOW you can see the problem.  Wait...you still can't?  Must be more to it.  Sure enough, 18 minutes later Weisman responded "@justicedems's endorsement included a photo."

Finally, there it is.  And predictably, the Left went into full-outrage mode.  For Times managing editor Dean Baquet it was the last straw. 

Baquet was still miffed at Weisman over an outrage a week earlier:  After the shooting in El Paso the president had said "No one should act with hate."  Weisman then wrote the story's headline as "Trump urges unity against racism."

Again predictably, the Left went crazy:  How DARE the Times use THAT headline?!  And you can see why.  Sure, the headline was both accurate and informative, but that wasn't good enough for the Left, cuz it did NOT demonize Trump.  Leftists deluged the Times with complaints, and the Times caved, changing the headline in later editions.

To make sure the Left was fully informed that the Times had totally kissed their ring, the paper issued a statement listing the punishment:
Jonathan Weisman met with [Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet] today and apologized for his recent serious lapses in judgment. As a consequence of his actions, he has been demoted and will no longer be overseeing the team that covers Congress or be active on social media. We don’t typically discuss personnel matters but we’re doing so in this instance with Jonathan’s knowledge,” a Times spokesperson said in a statement…
But we're not quite done:  In brief interview--tweeted--Weisman grovelled even more, saying
I accept Dean’s judgment. I think he’s right to do what he’s doing. I embarrassed the newspaper, and he had to act.”
You'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of how rigidly the Left demands total conformity from the media--or how eager the media is to comply with those demands.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home