A former New York Times reporter assigned to edit a controversial editorial by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) received threats after the paper identified him as a staffer who worked on the story. said.
Adam Rubenstein described his two years at Gray Lady as one of the “mavericks” who was shamed by co-workers for liking Chick-fil-A sandwiches, and after the publication of Cotton’s magazine. criticized the paper’s response to the aftermath of the incident. Editorial June 3, 2020.
Cotton, a former Army infantryman who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, called on then-President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the military to quell the riots that erupted after the death of George Floyd.
The next day, Times reporter Edmund Lee wrote an article identifying Rubenstein as the staffer who edited and fact-checked Cotton’s article.
“From time to time, the group responsible for security for the Times would check on me and make sure I was safe.” Rubenstein wrote in The Atlantic on Monday.
“Ever since the newspaper named me the person responsible for publishing Cotton’s editorials, I had been receiving alarming threats.”
Rubenstein said a friend contacted his girlfriend of seven years and demanded that she “take a stand” against “Adam’s role in promoting fascism.” According to Rubenstein, his girlfriend refused and the two planned to get married.
After the op-ed was published, more than 1,500 Times employees created a Slack channel specifically for the article and “planned next steps and read thousands of messages asking for a retraction,” Rubenstein said. I reminisced. [and] Firing. ”
Rubenstein accused the newspaper’s leaders, then-editor-in-chief Dean Baquet and publisher AG Sulzberger, of bowing to pressure from staff who argued that publishing Cotton’s article endangered black people. ) was criticized.
Rubenstein, who was tasked with editing and fact-checking Cotton’s op-ed, said the photo editor was asked to include a 1962 image showing U.S. troops enforcing the Insurrection Act in the segregated state of Mississippi. He later wrote that he expressed solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
“It’s a false equivalency, but the historical image is still there,” photo editor Jeffrey Henson Scales reportedly told Rubenstein on Slack.
Scales then sent Rubenstein a “black box emoji to express solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Rubenstein recalled how his then-boss, the editor of the op-ed page, James Bennett, was accused of “denigrating black people.” [Times] Our staff is at risk,” he said, greenlighting Cotton’s op-ed.
The protests ultimately forced Bennett to resign. Last December, Bennett slammed his former employer’s liberal “bias” and said he had been asked by conservatives to add a “trigger warning” to his op-ed.
Rubenstein slammed Times staffers who claimed their safety was at risk because of the op-ed.
“It was an outlandish claim, but one that was nearly impossible to refute. How can you tell someone who says it’s not safe that it’s actually safe?” The military has been deployed to protect the country.”
Rubenstein writes that Times economic reporter Edmund Lee was assigned to write an article about the controversy that Cotton’s op-ed had caused in the newsroom.
“I know from sources that you were the lead author,” Lee wrote to Rubenstein, a claim he called “ridiculous.”
Rubenstein introduced Lee to the Times’ corporate communications shop, but added in a memo to Lee, “Off the record: I can assure you that I am not writing the op-ed.”
Lee’s story included a Slack exchange between Scales and Rubenstein.
Mr. Rubenstein accused Mr. Scales of “sharing some of our Slack messages with reporters,” which he said was “against company policy.”
Lee’s story notes that Scales “disputed” the “false equivalency.”
“Yeah, there are some,” Rubenstein replied to Scales.
Rubenstein said Lee took the exchange out of context.
“The entire exchange made it clear that I was talking about photography,” Rubenstein wrote.
“When presented this way, many people took it as an admission that I believed the article drew a false equivalency.”
Under pressure from staff, the Times attached a memo to Mr. Cotton’s op-ed that said the editorial process was “rushed” and that “senior editors were not sufficiently involved.”
“Never mind, of course, it was not rushed, senior editors were heavily involved, and there were no correctable errors,” Rubenstein wrote.
Mr. Rubenstein blasted Mr. Cotton’s claims that he was calling for a massacre of civilian protesters, writing that the op-ed “makes a clear distinction between protests and undeniable violence and looting.”
A New York Times spokesperson told the Post that the paper stands by its decision to attach an editor’s note to Cotton’s op-ed.
“Our Opinion Department’s commitment to publishing a diversity of opinions, including those that are unpopular, controversial, and heretical, is steadfast,” Times spokeswoman Daniel Rose Ha said in a post. told the paper.
“A promise to publish a diversity of opinions cannot be used as a cover for inadequate processes or shoddy work,” Rhodes-Ha added.
“In this case, the work itself and the series of decisions that led to its publication did not stand up to scrutiny,” she told the Post.
Rhodes Ha said the Times review found that “despite the concerns raised by many editors, the review process was rushed and the editors who raised the issues were removed.” .
“In fact, Opinion’s top editor agreed not to peer review this article so it could be published sooner,” she said, adding, “None of that is Adam’s fault.”
Rhodes Ha said, “As a junior member of the team, he should have been given better editorial support and supervision.”
In response to Rose Ha’s statement, Rubenstein wrote: What I and others really deserved were leaders who wouldn’t bow to pressure and would sacrifice themselves to appease the newspaper’s noisy rebel groups. ”
