US

‘Breakdown’: Leak Probe Reveals Internal Rebellion By Left-Wing Employees At NYT

The New York Times building via Wikimedia Commons

Editors at The New York Times are conducting an internal investigation to determine whether employees leaked information about a story on the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Charlotte Behrendt, a NYT editor looking into newsroom workplace issues, interviewed approximately 20 employees to try and determine who leaked information about a planned podcast regarding a December article reporting on sexual violence committed by Hamas during the attack, the WSJ reported. The union filed a grievance about the probe that claims that the company targeted employees of Middle Eastern descent, which the NYT leaders deny.

“The idea that someone dips into that process in the middle, and finds something that they considered might be interesting or damaging to the story under way, and then provides that to people outside, felt to me and my colleagues like a breakdown in the sort of trust and collaboration that’s necessary in the editorial process,” NYT Executive Editor Joe Kahn said in an interview with the WSJ.

A leak probe inside the New York Times shows cracks in the culture of one of America’s leading newsrooms. https://t.co/gcNJTB7t5v

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 12, 2024

Staffers at the NYT have also pushed back on coverage of transgender issues, with over 1,000 contributors signing a petition criticizing two articles, one of which discussed transitioning children socially without the knowledge of parents, according to the WSJ.

“We need to do a better job communicating with each other as we report the news, so our discussions are more productive and our disagreements less distracting,” NYT International Editor Philip Pan said in one group chat where a debate over the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the WSJ reported.

Khan questioned if colleges have failed to provide students eventually hired by the outlet with the ability to deal with those who have different opinions, according to the WSJ.

“Young adults who are coming up through the education system are less accustomed to this sort of open debate, this sort of robust exchange of views around issues they feel strongly about than may have been the case in the past,” he said.

NYT staffers revolted over the June 2020 publication of an op-ed by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas calling for use of the National Guard to address riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death, eventually resulting in the firing of the editor who published the article.

Uri Berliner, an editor at National Public Radio, detailed  in an essay published in The Free Press his observations of biased coverage by NPR against former President Donald Trump and what he called a lack of “viewpoint diversity.”