‘They Called Me A Nazi And A Racist’: New York Times Columnist Resigns Citing Hostile Work Climate

For its India coverage, the New York Times has long been accused of demonising Hindus, spreading Hinduphobia, normalising violence against Hindus in India.

And making Hindu and Nazi comparisons.

(Read some of the works of Vamsee Juluri, professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco on the subject here, here and here).

One of the publication’s own columnists — who is Jewish — has now accused her colleagues of calling her a ‘Nazi’ and a ‘racist’.

Bari Weiss, an opinion editor and writer at the Times, has made these and other startling accusations against the paper in her resignation letter tendered on Monday.

It comes weeks after her tweet that there is a civil war on at the publication between “the (mostly young) wokes and the (mostly 40+) liberals”.

“My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again,” she wrote in her lengthy resignation letter to publisher A.G. Sulzberger.

Weiss has also trashed the paper’s increasing leftism.

Her letter says she was hired three years ago “with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home. The reason for this effort was clear: The paper’s failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn't have a firm grasp of the country it covers.”

However, Twitter has become the paper’s ultimate editor, she now says.

“…a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else. Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor,” her letter says.

In response, the Times sent this statement to several publications: “We appreciate the many contributions that Bari made to Times Opinion. I’m personally committed to ensuring that The Times continues to publish voices, experiences and viewpoints from across the political spectrum in the Opinion report. We see every day how impactful and important that approach is, especially through the outsized influence The Times’s opinion journalism has on the national conversation.”

This is the second dramatic exit at the Times after its editorial page director James Bennet resigned last month, following his publication of an opinion piece by a US Senator against rioting that sparked a mild controversy.