The New York Times editorial Friday on so-called cancel culture drew a flood of criticism. “America Has a Free Speech Problem” opens like this:
For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.
The Net exploded with a collective WTF!? Adam Davidson launched a short thread:
I’ve wondered, my own self, why this NYT editorial promoting the false “cancel culture” panic has upset me so much. I think part of it is this: I have fucking LOVED the NYT. Worked there. When it’s great, nothing comes close. But it has fundamentally misread this moment.
As the right has become more explicitly an anti-Democratic ethnonationalist movement, the NYT (unlike, say, WaPo) has seen its fundamental duty to be a paper for “both sides.” It sees its fundamental flaw in 2016 as not grokking the Trump fan.
Its coverage of the Trump WH was too often a version of “that naked Emperor show has a beautiful suit. ” In short, the NYT went deep into its instincts: both-sidism; respect for authority; a view that Trump-is-normal; that their job is not to call strikes as strikes.
I saw this as, mostly, a Dean Baquet problem. And I was hopeful (though wary) that his replacement will right the ship. But this editorial–approved, I have to assume, by AG Suzlberger, the publisher–suggests the problem is deep in the org.
I personally really like AG. He’s a lovely guy and smart. But I think he is running a paper adrift and in crisis. And this editorial was like them screaming out: Yeah, mother fuckers, we’re quadrupling down on our both-sidist views.
It breaks my heart. There is so much great work there. Right now, heroic NYT journalists are on the frontlines in Ukraine. But cover America like you cover Ukraine! It’s OK. It’s good to report the truth.
The Times did not simply highlight the term now picked up by Vladimir Putin to justify his invasion. Davidson added, “They claimed that we have a constitutional right to freedom from shame.”
That is how the editorial reads. Almost is if subconsciously the Times is begging for readers to stop critiquing how it covers the news even when it distorts it. It is a bizarre argument. Formulations are many, but speech that does not offend anyone requires no protection. When those who take offense express their outrage, that’s protected speech too, so long as it is expressed nonviolently. If you can’t take the heat, etc.
But the never-shunned Donald Trump and his supporters, unconstrained by shame or the 9th Commandment, abused their 1st Amendment right to spread lies that inspired an attempted coup a year ago. Mr. Shameless and his anti-Democratic ethnonationalist foot soldiers almost cancelled the country that invented the Bill of Rights. The Times treats condemnation of that as a threat to free speech. SMH.
“When speech is stifled or when dissenters are shut out of public discourse, a society also loses its ability to resolve conflict, and it faces the risk of political violence,” the Times complains.
When in the Trump era have conservative white men in rural diners or Trump fans parading about in flag-draped boats and pickups and semis been shut out of public discourse, had their speech stifled? Least of all by the New York Times?
The political violence came anyway. Perpetrated by the shameless.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.