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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/new-york-times-opinion-editor-resigns-send-in-the-troop-james-bennet-tom-cotton-1.5602477

New York Times opinion editor resigns over 'Send in the Troops' op-ed

Essay written by Republican senator advocated for using U.S. troops to quell protests

The Associated Press· Posted: Jun 07, 2020 5:31 PM ET



James Bennet, editorial page editor of The New York Times, leaves federal court in New York in August 2017. (Larry Neumeister/The Associated Press)


The New York Times' editorial page editor resigned Sunday after the newspaper disowned an opinion piece by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton that advocated using federal troops to quell unrest, and it was later revealed he hadn't read the piece prior to publication.

James Bennet resigned and his deputy, James Dao, is being reassigned at the newspaper, the Times said Sunday.

The fallout was swift after the Arkansas Republican's piece was posted online late Wednesday. It caused a revolt among Times journalists, with some saying it endangered black employees and calling in sick on Thursday in protest.

Following a review, the newspaper said Cotton's piece should not have been published, at least not without substantial revisions.

Katie Kingsbury, a Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial writing who joined the Times from the Boston Globe in 2017, will oversee the opinion pages through the November elections, the Times said.


I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but to not say something would be immoral. As a black woman, as a journalist, as an American, I am deeply ashamed that we ran this. https://nyti.ms/3dyvJ5Z


9:11 PM - Jun 3, 2020



Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said in a statement that he was grateful for changes Bennet had made to the paper's opinion pages, including broadening the range of voices. Bennet, who was editor of The Atlantic before taking over the Times' opinion pages in 2016, had received some heat for adding new voices, including conservative columnist Bret Stephens.

The publisher told a reporter from his own newspaper that he and Bennet both "concluded that James would not be able to lead the team through the next leg of change required."
It was the second high-level journalism job lost because of mistakes made in coverage of the nationwide protests about the treatment of blacks by law enforcement. The top editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stan Wischnowski, resigned Saturday after uproar over a headline that said, Buildings Matter, Too.

Even before Bennet's resignation and the paper rescinding its support for Cotton's piece, Sulzberger had called for beefing up the opinion section's fact-checking and suggesting that it was publishing too many opinion pieces by outsiders.


The Times reported that Cotton's piece was edited by Adam Rubenstein. But Dao, in a tweet on Saturday, revealed that he supervised the acceptance and review of Cotton's piece and that blame should be placed on the department's leadership and not Rubenstein.



Cotton on Sunday tweeted an initial copy of a Times article about Bennet's resignation, saying it was "false and offensive." He said he advocated using military force as a backup, only if police are overwhelmed, to stop riots — not against protesters.

Cotton retweeted President Donald Trump, who said that "the State of Arkansas is very proud of Tom. The New York Times is Fake News!"

He had no other comment, a spokesperson said.

Had not read article before posting

Bennet, who had revealed in a meeting on Friday that he had not read Cotton's piece before it was posted online, had defended it following the initial protests, saying it was important to hear from all points of view.

But the Times review criticized several aspects of Cotton's piece, starting with the headline, "Send in the Troops", which the newspaper said in an editor's note Saturday was "incendiary and should not have been used."

Cotton's essay referred to "left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit" Floyd's death when, in fact, there has been little evidence of antifa's involvement in the demonstrations. Cotton's statement that police had borne the brunt of violence stemming from the demonstrations should have been challenged, the newspaper said.


WATCH | Covering racism: Why Canadian media struggles to get it right



George Floyd’s murder and the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto are once again forcing journalists and editors across Canada to confront their mistakes. Nil Köksal speaks to Black journalists about what positive change would look like. 10:42


The newspaper said that "given the life-and-death importance of the topic, the senator's influential position and the gravity of the steps he advocates, the essay should have undergone the highest level of scrutiny."

Bennet, the brother of U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, was declining requests for interviews, a Times spokesperson said. Sulzberger was unavailable, she said.

Sulzberger also told the Times the Cotton incident was "a significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we've experienced in recent years." The opinion section received criticism in 2019 for publishing an unsubstantiated allegation against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.



 



339 Comments 





George Reid
What’s the point of opinion pieces if you only allow one opinion


Fred Thiolla 





























John Sollows
Excessive censoring of controversial points of view will play into Trump's hands.


Li Mochi 






























Jon Karl
So instead of having opinion pieces, we are going to have one opinion throughout the paper.


Barry Bondar 














































https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html

Editors’ Note, June 5, 2020:

After publication, this essay met strong criticism from many readers (and many Times colleagues), prompting editors to review the piece and the editing process. Based on that review, we have concluded that the essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published.

The basic arguments advanced by Senator Cotton — however objectionable people may find them — represent a newsworthy part of the current debate. But given the life-and-death importance of the topic, the senator’s influential position and the gravity of the steps he advocates, the essay should have undergone the highest level of scrutiny. Instead, the editing process was rushed and flawed, and senior editors were not sufficiently involved. While Senator Cotton and his staff cooperated fully in our editing process, the Op-Ed should have been subject to further substantial revisions — as is frequently the case with such essays — or rejected.

For example, the published piece presents as facts assertions about the role of “cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa”; in fact, those allegations have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Editors should have sought further corroboration of those assertions, or removed them from the piece. The assertion that police officers “bore the brunt” of the violence is an overstatement that should have been challenged. The essay also includes a reference to a “constitutional duty” that was intended as a paraphrase; it should not have been rendered as a quotation.

Beyond those factual questions, the tone of the essay in places is needlessly harsh and falls short of the thoughtful approach that advances useful debate. Editors should have offered suggestions to address those problems. The headline — which was written by The Times, not Senator Cotton — was incendiary and should not have been used.

Finally, we failed to offer appropriate additional context — either in the text or the presentation — that could have helped readers place Senator Cotton’s views within a larger framework of debate.

---

This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s.

New York City suffered the worst of the riots Monday night, as Mayor Bill de Blasio stood by while Midtown Manhattan descended into lawlessness. Bands of looters roved the streets, smashing and emptying hundreds of businesses. Some even drove exotic cars; the riots were carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements.

Outnumbered police officers, encumbered by feckless politicians, bore the brunt of the violence. In New York State, rioters ran over officers with cars on at least three occasions. In Las Vegas, an officer is in “grave” condition after being shot in the head by a rioter. In St. Louis, four police officers were shot as they attempted to disperse a mob throwing bricks and dumping gasoline; in a separate incident, a 77-year-old retired police captain was shot to death as he tried to stop looters from ransacking a pawnshop. This is “somebody’s granddaddy,” a bystander screamed at the scene.

Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.

Other views

Opinion | Michelle Goldberg

Tom Cotton’s Fascist Op-Ed

June 4, 2020

Opinion | The Editorial Board

In America, Protest Is Patriotic

June 2, 2020

Opinion | Jonathan Stevenson

Trump Was Wrong to Deploy Troops. Will the Military Push Back?

June 3, 2020

Opinion | Philip V. McHarris and Thenjiwe McHarris

No More Money for the Police

May 30, 2020

Opinion | Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People.

May 29, 2020

But the rioting has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence. On the contrary, nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.

These rioters, if not subdued, not only will destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens but will also take more innocent lives. Many poor communities that still bear scars from past upheavals will be set back still further.

One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of 

law

The pace of looting and disorder may fluctuate from night to night, but it’s past time to support local law enforcement with federal authority. Some governors have mobilized the National Guard, yet others refuse, and in some cases the rioters still outnumber the police and Guard combined. In these circumstances, the Insurrection Act authorizes the president to employ the military “or any other means” in “cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws.”

This venerable law, nearly as old as our republic itself, doesn’t amount to “martial law” or the end of democracy, as some excitable critics, ignorant of both the law and our history, have comically suggested. In fact, the federal government has a constitutional duty to the states to “protect each of them from domestic violence.” Throughout our history, presidents have exercised this authority on dozens of occasions to protect law-abiding citizens from disorder. Nor does it violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which constrains the military’s role in law enforcement but expressly excepts statutes such as the Insurrection Act.

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For instance, during the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson called out the military to disperse mobs that prevented school desegregation or threatened innocent lives and property. This happened in my own state. Gov. Orval Faubus, a racist Democrat, mobilized our National Guard in 1957 to obstruct desegregation at Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower federalized the Guard and called in the 101st Airborne in response. The failure to do so, he said, “would be tantamount to acquiescence in anarchy.”

More recently, President George H.W. Bush ordered the Army’s Seventh Infantry and 1,500 Marines to protect Los Angeles during race riots in 1992. He acknowledged his disgust at Rodney King’s treatment — “what I saw made me sick” — but he knew deadly rioting would only multiply the victims, of all races and from all walks of life.

Not surprisingly, public opinion is on the side of law enforcement and law and order, not insurrectionists. According to a recent poll, 58 percent of registered voters, including nearly half of Democrats and 37 percent of African-Americans, would support cities’ calling in the military to “address protests and demonstrations” that are in “response to the death of George Floyd.” That opinion may not appear often in chic salons, but widespread support for it is fact nonetheless.

The American people aren’t blind to injustices in our society, but they know that the most basic responsibility of government is to maintain public order and safety. In normal times, local law enforcement can uphold public order. But in rare moments, like ours today, more is needed, even if many politicians prefer to wring their hands while the country burns.

Tom Cotton (@sentomcotton) is a Republican senator from Arkansas