New York Times op-ed editor resigns after controversial Tom Cotton column calling for military to intervene against protesters
Opinion page editor’s resignation comes after The Times admitted he had not read the controversial article
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Your support makes all the difference.An editor at The New York Times has resigned after he defended a controversial opinion piece in which a Republican senator called for US military intervention against crowds protesting racism and police brutality.
The Times said on Sunday that its opinion page editor James Bennet had resigned from his position amid widespread condemnation over last week’s publication of Tom Cotton’s opinion piece entitled “Send in the Troops”.
Mr Bennet, who oversees opinion pieces at The New York Times, had earlier defended his decision to publish the senator’s controversial opinion piece on Wednesday.
Others condemned the op-ed because it both endorsed US president Donald Trump’s threats about military deployment against protesters, and according to The Times’ own journalists, endangered black lives.
The Times’ issued a statement on Friday that said the op-ed did not meet its own editorial standards.
Eileen Murphy, a Times’ spokeswoman, added that an internal review on Thursday had “made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an op-ed that did not meet our standards.”
The Times also admitted that Mr Bennet had not read Mr Cotton’s op-ed prior to publication.
He had said on Thursday that “readers who might be inclined to oppose Cotton’s positions need to be fully aware of it, and reckon with it, if they were to defeat it.”
Mr Cotton soon commented on the controversy and told Fox News that The Times was “surrendering to the mindless woke mob” over the matter.
The president said on Twitter that Mr Bennet had “quit over the excellent Op-Ed penned by our great Senator @TomCottonAR.”
“TRANSPARENCY!”, added Mr Trump on Sunday night. “The State of Arkansas is very proud of Tom. The New York Times is Fake News!!!”
Mr Bennet’s deputy, James Dao, will also resign from his position at the paper and be reassigned to the newsroom.
A note sent to staff on Sunday added that there had been “a significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we’ve experienced in recent years.”
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