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Comment by flyinglizard | Hacker News Reader

This week the NYT apologized[0] for publishing an op-ed[1] from a Republican senator which stated something (using the military to restore civil order) which has broad - if not majority - support among Americans[2]. Some columnists apologetically said that giving Sen. Tom Cotton a stage could be justified on the basis of giving that to other enemies of the US in the past, such as Iran and the Taliban[3].

It seems like in the USA circa 2020 there's a pretty narrow legitimate range of opinions, stepping out of which immediately earns you *cist expletives.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/business/new-york-times-o...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-o...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/tom-cotton-op-ed-...

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Why are you mis-representing what the NYT did? Are you just hoping people don't read your citations. From your citation

> For example, the published piece presents as facts assertions about the role of “cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa”; in fact, those allegations have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Editors should have sought further corroboration of those assertions, or removed them from the piece. The assertion that police officers “bore the brunt” of the violence is an overstatement that should have been challenged. The essay also includes a reference to a “constitutional duty” that was intended as a paraphrase; it should not have been rendered as a quotation.

The NYT didn't apologize for publishing an Op-Ed from a Senator. It apologized for doing it's job badly and publishing materially false statements as fact.

It's worth noting that Senator Cotton went on to publicly call for the extra judicial killing of protestors. Which, if we're really so concerned about legitimate opinions, I would suggest murdering protestors would have more of a chilling effect than choosing not to publish their op-eds.

The "opinions" section is not for fact checked objective pieces of journalistic integrity; it's for stating the personal opinions of important people, whether factually right or wrong.

My opinion remains that NYT had to apologize and take corrective steps for letting a stray wave penetrate the echo chamber.

I've read quite a few NYT opinion pieces with completely false claims in them in the past, some of them racist (against British people!).

They only start to care now? I thought the point of an op-ed is that it's like a blog. The publishers don't interfere with its content and thus it can be totally wrong.

> It apologized for doing it's job badly and publishing materially false statements as fact.

Does that mean they'll also be apologising for The 1619 Project?

Seems that a new thing these days is that we need to be lectured on what the content mean. And that we are incapable of understanding ourselves. When did we get so dum that some individuals/groups gets to do the explaining. What makes us sure that these actually have the right answer. IMHO, I’m not sure.

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