The Press Box - Jemele Hill on Protests, Roger Goodell, and ESPN. Plus, Police Unions and James Bennet

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

Bryan Curtis, David Shoemaker, and Chris Almeida are joined by Jemele Hill, host of the podcast 'Way Down in the Hole,' to discuss the effects of the protests that are now in their 14th day (0:45). Then, 'Philadelphia Inquirer' columnist Will Bunch joins to explain police unions and what they mean for reform (23:00). Finally, Curtis, Shoemaker, and Almeida discuss James Bennet's resignation from 'The New York Times.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. This is the press box. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. Our topic is once again the protests in response to the killing of George Floyd. We'll talk to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch about police unions. How did unions get us to this spot in American life? And how could they prevent future efforts at reform? Also, New York Times editorial page editor James Bennett has resigned after publishing an op-ed by Tom Cotton. David and I discuss whether we're going to see a massive change in the way op-ed sections are run. First, we welcome Jamel Hill. She's a writer at the Atlantic host of the Jamel Hill is Unbothered podcast and also co-host of the Ringered podcast, The Wire, Way Down in the Hole.

Thank you for doing this, Jamel. Thank you for having me. George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25th. The protests are now in their 14th day with huge crowds over the weekend from L.A. to Philadelphia. Philadelphia. I first want to ask you this. What is striking to you about where the protests are now, both from the scenes we see on TV and their effects beyond that? Certainly the length of time, as you just noted, for this to have gone on now for two weeks. I certainly expected people in the moment and in the aftermath to be so emotionally affected by this tragedy that the momentum would certainly be there. but I never expected it to sustain for as long as it did. And I'll have to say that I think also the fact that the nature of the protest has changed

has really been as effective, I think, as the unrest part of the protest. It's like it's in two different parts. It's like part one, a lot of unrest, a lot of rebellion. You know, it was certainly more of a physical, you know, nature with property being destroyed and all those kinds of things. And then there, and obviously clashes with the police, which are still happening, but a little bit less than it was at the beginning. And now it's changed into a full-scale wholesale movement, what you saw in Philadelphia, what you've seen in D.C., what you've seen in Los Angeles, where you're getting thousands of people who are galvanized behind this issue. And I don't think I ever expected this level of participation and certainly not for there to be this much diverse participation.

because in Ferguson, it was clearly an issue that Black Lives Matter, black people were fighting for. And there was not a lot of white people who were involved or that you could see in some of the images from television. And now you're seeing a cross-section of people who are involved in this issue. That change in the nature of the protest you mentioned. What do you attribute that to? Well, I think once to some degree the feelings calmed out. And I also think the fact that all four of the.

Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd's murder, the fact that they were all arrested in charge. I think that had a lot to do with why you've seen the unrest settle a little bit. It went from we're angry about what's happened, the lack of justice. And now that we have the world's attention, what do we plan to do with this power and how can we use this power to really institute some long-lasting change? And so it's kind of almost like the stages of grief, if you will. Like once the anger subsides, there comes a level of, okay, how do we move on in a way that's productive and carries this spirit of what these protests are about with us? So a lot of it had to do with them feeling as if some semblance of justice was taking place, even though not all justice has been meted out at this point.

do you see this as do you see we talked to our ringer writer Tyler Tynes about this last week is this a straight line from previous protests previous tragedies in the past I mean do you see

what's different this time why do you feel like there are so many more people on the streets why do you feel like change is actually occurring or seems to be on the precipice of occurring right now

well I think a lot of it had to do that it with the fact that it's not just black people and the nature of what we saw now this is not the first time that an injustice has been captured on video. But with this one, there was no yeah-but. There was no yeah-but you could say, right?

And as disgusting to me as it was that whether it be Mike Brown or Tamir Rice even, Sandra Bland, there was always somebody trying to argue against what video clearly showed. And there were not enough people who frankly saw it as a injustice and a tragedy. With George Floyd, there is nothing in that video that you can point to and say he did something wrong.

And even if he had, that doesn't mean he deserves to be executed on the street. But I think just the visceral reaction that we all had, it was, you know, this cop leaning on his neck for, you know, nearly nine minutes. And in his face showing that he could have given less than a fuck about George Floyd. And just it looked like Tuesday to him. We're watching somebody murdered and executed on the street. It looked like Tuesday to this too. So it's the reaction of the officers around him. It's George Floyd crying out for his mother.

It's several inhumanities that take place within the larger scale of one massive inhumanity. And I think it just really touched a different nerve with a lot of people who were not willing to be involved before. And then once they were involved, they started adding up all the other evidence, all the other names that I mentioned. And this was coming off just in recent months,

Armard Arbery executed in the street in a modern day litching, Brianna Taylor losing her life over a botched raid of complete police incompetence, which seems to happen to people of color, black people, let me be specific, more so than anybody else. So you had all these incidents, we still have the past, and I think it just reached a tipping point for people where even those who wanted to stay silent or uninvolved

or at least in the middle, if there ever was such a thing, they decided, you know what, at some point it is what it is. And so either I'm going to be on the right side of this thing or I'm going to be someone who's silent and perpetually feels as if this is what should happen to a marginalized group in this country. I wanted to ask you about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Goodell was something less than an ally, to use a word I heard a lot this week, to Colin Kaepernick back in 2016 and other protesting NFL players after that. Yet here was Roger Goodell Friday night, we're going to play a very short clip of what he said.

We, the National Football League, condemn racism in the systematic oppression of black people. We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the National Football League, believe Black Lives Matter. I personally protest with you. and want to be part of the much-needed change in this country. Jamel, how much stock do you put in that? This is quite an interesting 2020 bingo card.

I don't think I would have had Taylor Swift attacking white supremacy and the president. And now you have Roger Goodell apologizing to black people. Didn't see this one coming, right? So I have mixed feelings about his quote-unquote apology. mixed feelings because the person he needed to apologize to, rather, was Colin Kaepernick. He played a significant role, him and the other 32 owners, but let's not let them off the hook. They destroyed this man's career for speaking out against the very same thing that happened to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmad Arborary. And that's never going to be made right.

Even when Colin Kaepernick, even should he somehow magically wind up back in the NFL, It's still not going to make it right. And so his apology, I guess I always judge people. What do you do when it's not so convenient? And we saw what Roger Goodell did. We saw what the NFL did. When Donald Trump was using Colin Kaepernick's protests and the protests of the players against social injustice

and poloosy brutality, the NFL withered. They did not stand with their players. And I don't know if they ever get past that moment, Because once you've exposed what you will do when things get difficult, you can't walk that back. You had one moment in history to make this right to stand on the right side of history and you did everything wrong. And you don't get a second chance. And they just have to accept that. So there is no amount of apology that Roger Condell can do in my eyes that's ever going to correct that.

And then we'll see what happens going forward. There's a lot of players that are talking about how they're going to be kneeling in protest when football resumes. What is he going to do then? Donald Trump's not letting this go. He's made this clear with his tweets. And certainly as we get closer to the election, I anticipate he'll be even more aggressive because he feels like this is an episode

or this is an issue he has won on, unlike a lot of other issues that have been more polarizing. What are the other owners going to do? Because this is not just about Roger Goodell. Roger Goodell is a figurehead for the NFL. That's not to imply that he doesn't, you know, have meaningful responsibilities. but he can't make 32 owners sign Colin Kaepernet.

And there's still a huge percentage of them that give money to Donald Trump who have played both sides of the fence, giving money to Donald Trump like Stephen Ross, but yet having the nerve to have an organization that's addressing inequality. So you can't feed inequality on one end and then try to change it on the other end.

That doesn't even make any sense. So we have a lot of them who are in that bubble. and are they willing to not support Donald Trump? Are they willing to stop giving him to his campaign? Because he's actively against these issues that they say they stand with black people on. So I don't judge people about what they say. I judge them about what they do. And based off the actions of the NFL, they deserve no benefit of the doubt when it comes to this.

Let's talk about another powerful institution, your former employer, ESPN. You had a fairly particular role for yourself, a particular role carved out there, where you were both a journalist by any definition, an on-air personality, but you also spoke truth to power in a way that very few other people will not use that platform to do. What do you feel like,

well, I guess I should say when you left, a lot of people, myself included, felt like it was, I don't know, at the end of an era, or just a huge missed opportunity for ESPN in general. But what do you feel like the role of ESPN is, or any corporation like ESPN,

that broadcast games that deals with the NFL, that deals with these issues directly or indirectly. What do you think their role should be right now? Well, I mean, ESPN has always had a complicated role in that they're trying to cover and criticize and critique, rather, the same people they're in business with. So it's hard to exist in a clean way when you're, you know, giving money or you're part of the sports economy on one end with the games and broadcasting rights. And then you also have this other arm that has a journalistic purpose.

And they often have to make difficult choices. And they're not always on the side of journalism. I mean, we've seen countless examples of this. And so I guess I was more relieved to see ESPN actually not just engaging in the conversations that people are having now, but engaging in them in a meaningful, critical way. And over a period of time, they could have easily rushed past this. I'm not necessarily giving them credit. I'm more just surprised because obviously when I left, there was a lot of conversations in the company, a lot of broader conversations for people whose job it is to critique ESPN who saw that they had clearly made a shift.

I mean, clearly that happened. And they did not want to be involved in some of these messier issues of race, sports, and politics and gender. And they kind of made that clear. And so to see them kind of go back the other way, I think it has been. a relief. But again, kind of like with the NFL, I don't judge you about what you do when it's convenient. See, the only thing that's changed is that public opinion has changed. And that now that the public seems to be more open to having this conversation and that you have major corporation heads talking about Black Lives Matter actually saying Black Lives Matter, right?

And you didn't have that before. Before you were a little bit out on your own and you were out on a limb. So if you said Black Lives Matter or if you talked about police brutality, any of these issues, you are going to get a lot of blowback. And so while I'm relieved more so for my colleagues because they get an opportunity to say a lot of things, or my former colleagues, they get an opportunity to say some things they've always wanted to say and show a level of vulnerability and humanity that I don't think that they had often been given permission to showcase. I'm happy they're able to lend their voice to this issue. But again, I'm going to judge you about what you do when it's not convenient.

And so when the games come back and we have results and championships and debates about LeBron versus Jordan to distract us, are they just going to go back to being the same old ESPN of just the fax mail? I don't know. I thought about this this weekend, Jamel. We saw the New York Times employees. There was that op-ed by Tom Cotton. They got together.

They used their collective power. Editor wound up resigning. Philadelphia Inquirer. Pretty similar thing, right? that Buildings Matter 2 headline. Editor winds up resigning. Your former newspaper person, you know this. Could ESPN employees do you think use their collective power in that same way?

So just to give people some insight, because I often got asked this question when I was at ESPN, not as much now that I'm not there. So when things like that happened, and I'll give you an example, the fantasy football auction that ESPN had that wound up pissing off a lot of people, rightly so, because it looked like a slave auction. And the fact that nobody there thought we have a bunch of white people sitting in the audience bidding on players and no one considered what the optics of that would look like. It was a lot of things that allowed that to become a major disaster and bad optics for ESPN. Understand every time something like that happens, the black employees inside of ESPN and some of the white ones did just to be fair here raise hell.

We always did. There was never, it's just publicly people didn't find out about it. we chose to handle it more internally. And that was the difference. There was a lot of conversations, a lot of meetings, a lot of I'm sorrys that occurred as a result. And so a lot of times that people would ask me, like, why don't, you know,

I guess they expected me to be on sports center saying, let me tell these, you know, these senior managers here at ESPN where they could take this damn face it. Like, you weren't going to say, like you can't really commentate on yourself. You know what I'm saying? Like it would have just been kind of odd, right?

But where some of that is just the dynamics of the different type of corporation that ESPN is as opposed to a newspaper, if you will, I do think that those conversations are definitely taking place. Not I think. I know they are because I still have friends there inside of ESPN, and for that matter, inside of Disney, where you have some black employees there who feel now energized and empowered to deal with some of the issues and lack of diversity and inclusion inside of ESPN. because the thing is like, people have to understand this is much more than about who you see on first tape and who you see on SportsCenter. ESPN presents a very pretty team picture

when you look at the talent. It looks very diverse. You have women. You have, you know, Latino women, you have black women. You have a very, you know, by standards of other networks, ESPN's team picture looks pretty good.

Start peeling back a layer or two. Ask them how many coordinating producers they have. Ask them how many senior roles that black people have when it comes to content decisions. That's where they are should be embarrassed, frankly. And so those are the conversations that need to take place inside the building or just need to take place, period, inside of both Disney and ESPN. Because I said this on Twitter, all these companies and corporations

that are tweeting out these wonderful diversity statements and talk about who they stand with, show me your organization chart before you start having this conversation. Before you start putting out statements, let's look at what your senior leadership at your company looks like. And I'm going to tell you those two things do not match. It's only four black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. So I know most of y'all have put out the statement.

It didn't match. So to me, that's where the hard work has to be done for any corporation. But in particular, ESPN, and I was proud to see at the New York Times. And to some degree, also in Pittsburgh, too, where there's another situation, yeah, that's bubbling and that's disgraceful. And also the Philadelphia Inquirer, as I said this when I was on CNN a few days ago, and it's true, it's like being a journalist is a job of agitation. Like, we're not supposed to, people aren't supposed to like us. We're supposed to hold the powerful accountable. That's the job because usually the truth does, just by the extension of telling a fair and accurate story, is that it usually holds people accountable who don't want to be held accountable.

And when I was in newspapers, the funny thing is we used to fight about that stuff all the time. Like, whenever the paper did something that, you know, that the journalists I worked with thought was out of line, inappropriate, tone deaf, whatever category you want to put it in, it was always newsroom battles like that. And I kind of missed that, frankly, being at ESPN because it was just a much, it was a really corporate structure. And so it just happened differently. But, you know, in newspapers, you just raise hell. And that's just how it is. And so I was really proud of my journalistic colleagues for holding their paper accountable and, frankly, getting results. That's why you're seeing resignations.

And that's why you're seeing, you know, major apologies being done. That's kind of what you're supposed to do, even by, even with the people who sign your checks. Before we go, Jamel, we might have already said this off the air, but I want to ask you one more time. Senator Chuck Schumer from New York made a particular sartorial choice today. What is your take on that? So I feel like I'm in the last, for context, in the last week, I've had more conversations with well-intentioned white folks than I probably ever have in my life. And I appreciate it.

I mean, a lot of them are really good friends of mine. One friend in particular buddy of mine I've known for 20 years, another journalist. He's calling to apologize to me for 18, even the end. And I'm just like, girl, slow down. You know, and a couple of incidents where he felt like he could have my back and he didn't. We talked it out and everything like that. And then it was a daily thing when white people were like texting me, you know, like, are you fine? Are you okay?

I just want you to know I'm here for you. I'm like, all right. Cool. My cash app is. But anyway, so there has been, and I know it comes from a good place. But I'm going to need white people to kind of slow down a little bit. And Chuck Schumer was unfortunately an example of this. Now, I realized this came from the congressional black caucus.

So he wasn't led down this road by himself. And unfortunately, he was led down this road by other black people. The police reform that they're proposing, the policies, all great. That's the stuff that matters. I don't need you to dress like you just came from a field trip in Ghana to visually make me understand. And you are with black people, all right? Shout out to the late John Witherspoon.

You ain't got to coordinate, all right? You don't have to say, you know what? For them to believe I'm really up with these black people, let me go out and get some Kintang Club. I'm like, what y'all coming with next? Are we going to see like a dashiki, an Afro? Like, what is happening? So I just didn't need them to spell it that hard.

Like, we got you, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, got you. You with us, understood. We don't need you to also outfit yourself. as you are presenting important reform that will certainly serve as major support to the black community. I mean, I guess you let us see it. Like, I'm glad that they took it that far, but it's like, relax people, relax white people. You could read Jamel Hill at the Atlantic, listen to her podcasts on Spotify.

Thank you, as always, Jamel, for doing this. I appreciate it. Thank you guys for having me. All right, David, we're going to talk to Will Boyle. bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer, but first, this message from Roman. You've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming.

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There was a really good column I thought on Sunday by Will Bunch of the Philadelphia inquirer about the specter of these unions. We brought him on to talk about their power and where they go from here. All right, Will, let's start with the protests in Philadelphia. Watching TV over the weekend, there was that amazing nearly mile-long crowd that started on the steps of the art museum. and it's always interesting to me how the character of protests

has differed slightly from city to city over the last week. What did you notice when you were out there about how the protests were resonating in Philadelphia? Well, a couple things, Brian. First of all, was just the size, as you mentioned. I mean, I was here in 2015 when Pope Francis visited Philadelphia

and had a mass at pretty much the same location as that protest. And I would say this crowd was as big, if not bigger than that crowd. So we're talking about tens and tens of thousands of people. And the other thing, and I don't think this is unique to Philadelphia, though, but it is striking to go out in these crowds and just notice the diversity. I mean, certainly very multiracial.

He was a little bit young. I'd say people in the 20 to 35-age bracket, but really people of all ages, people who haven't been to protests before, really just something the likes that we haven't seen in this country, I mean, at least in 50 years. It's really unbelievable. One of the amazing sights about the last week is the number of statues that have come down, not only in America, but there's actually one in England, too. In Philadelphia, we saw this with Frank Rizzo, former mayor and police commissioner.

A statue of Rizzo was removed near City Hall last week. A mural in the Italian market was painted over on Sunday. For those of us who are not Philadelphians, what is the resonance of taking down a Frank Rizzo statue? Well, Frank Rizzo was a very divisive figure in this city. You know, he was the police commissioner in the 1960s. He was mayor in the 1970s. And at that time, he was basically hated by half the city and loved by half the city. I mean, and you have to understand the half that loved him, the city's ethnic population.

I mean, he was the first Italian-American mayor. He was part of the law and order, tough on crime, moving in the 70s. I mean, not only was he like Richard Nixon, he was actually friends with Richard. Nixon and a political associate. And the thing that's so striking is, like I said, I mean, at that time, he was beloved by half the city. And there was always this fear of, you know, insulting the pro-Rizzo part of the city if the statute was taken down or if the mural was painted over.

And in this week, those two things both happened in a matter of days. And there's really no negative outcry about it at all. I mean, if anybody felt offended by taking the statue down, they kept silent. And it just shows what a revolutionary change there's been in 2020. It's really remarkable how quickly these things happen and with such little backlash. You devoted your Sunday column in the inquiry to police unions. You wrote that in certain cases, they actually act like the mafia. How do police unions act like the mafia?

Well, in some cases, they act like they're running a protection racket. And, you know, when certain local businesses have taken action that seem to be supportive of the protests or Black Lives Matter, they've actually been threatened with actions like boycotts by the police unions and presumably the people who support them. So, for example, we had a very popular food purveyor in South Philadelphia, the Italian, or traditionally Italian neighborhood that for a time was, for a few days, was giving free lunch to cops. some of their younger staff members protested, and so they stopped doing that. And as a result, police said, you know, posted on Twitter against them, said they were going to boycott them. You had on conservative talk radio, they were saying, oh, we're done with this to Bruno Brothers, this story that had done that. Delaware County, the suburbs of Philadelphia, same thing. A shop owner put something on Facebook in support of Black Lives Matter.

and a high-ranking police union official was on Facebook saying, you know, we could ruin your business, basically. And, you know, so it's like protection in that sense. And the other sense is just the extreme lengths they go to rally behind their members who've been accused of brutality and misconduct. Yeah, the quote from Delaware County was, Try Us, We'll Destroy You, which is not okay, especially not okay for someone in a police union.

Yeah, he did delete that. But, you know, and it's not just businesses, Brian. You know, I mean, look at some of these political leaders like Bill de Blasio or even in Buffalo where the police union has rallied behind these two cops that we saw in video shoving the 75-year-old peace activist to the ground, which just seemed like maybe the most outrageous police misconduct captured on film this week, which is saying something. And, you know, I saw the mayor of Buffalo on. on TV and he was just very reluctant to criticize the police despite what everybody saw on that videotape. And I mean, I felt like I was watching a hostage video at times. And, you know, Bill Vablosio, the mayor of New York, same thing. You know, so much brutality by his force captured on film. And he was very reluctant to criticize these officers. And I think that just shows the power, you know, the kind of political and just the intimidating

power of these policing units. So that's the real question, right? because we've now seen police reform efforts at the federal level, at the state level, at the city level. But going forward, police unions are going to be a major potential roadblock and not just in terms of cowing politicians, as you mentioned in that case, but in other ways, too. How will they go about, do you think, maybe trying to get in the way of reform? Well, I think they're going to try and cling to the way that they blocked the form in the past, which is through their union contract. A lot of this is just not a simple matter of legislators or city councils passing laws. These things are parts of their labor contracts that they negotiate with these cities and municipalities,

particularly in the area of arbitration, which means that when a cop commits an act of severe misconduct or brutality or is involved in a police shooting, you know, that the commissioner can fire them or discipline them, and they have the right to appeal us to an arbitrator. And these hearings are usually secretive, and they're also set up in a way that they're often stacked and clear of the cops. I mean, we've had so many officers here in Philadelphia, you know, captured on tape, punching people and all kinds of misconduct who've been reinstated by these arbitration panels,

and they're part of the union contract. So the only way to change them is to pressure your mayor or your elected officials, to take a tougher stance in these contract negotiations. That's what it's all going to come down to. When we talk about efforts that reform, we hear words like defund, reform, abolish, at the end of the day, it all comes down to essentially the mayor in a bargaining agreement. That's what it is. To me, that's probably the biggest obstacle.

But, you know, I also think it's not an insurmountable obstacle because, you know, I mean, voters can always elect a new mayor who says, look, this is a priority for me. I'm going to take a tough stance, and, you know, I'll negotiate. You know, maybe we can find other areas, you know, where we can give police a pay raise. I think a lot of people don't object to the police officers being paid fairly for a day's work. You know, you know, most blue-collar workers in America probably deserve pay raises. But police are not like, you know, the United Steelworkers, or they're not like the UAW because they have the power to commit state-sanction violence. It's a different situation.

I mean, and so the fact that we can't, we can't discipline or we can't get at them when they commit these acts and misconduct because of what's in their contract, that just goes beyond the normal labor relations in this country. You know, and even some labor unions are starting to question this, you know. It's just something that's got to change. I think one of the more jaw-dropping figures we've been talking about over the last week plus is Minneapolis as Bob Kroll, who's, the president of the police union there, actually spoke at a Trump rally, so not just kind of, kind of a political actor, actually a political actor at a Trump rally. What do you make of him? Yeah, and also, you know, other FOP chapters like ours in Philadelphia also endorsed Trump. So it's not, it's not just the Minneapolis. But, you know, Bob Cole was elected head of the

police union in Minneapolis in 2015 because they had a new commissioner who was talking about reform. And you also had, you know, America's first black president, Barack Obama, who was in D.C., embracing some mild versions of police reform. And, you know, these officers circled the wagon. They elected Bob Bull because he took a really tough stance and, you know, was just aggressively resistant to these things. And, you know, when he spoke at the Trump rally, he said, you know, thank God for President Trump. He's taking the handcuffs off of us, put them on criminals, which is kind of chilling words. when you think about what happened to George Floyd six months later. But that's how these cops feel.

They feel like any effort to, you know, discipline to get rid of the cops that we call bad apples for better or worse, you know, they feel they're being persecuted. They seem to have extreme persecution complex. And, I mean, they really fight back aggressively against any in all efforts to reform this part of the system. One last question before we let you go, Will, your paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, ran a headline over an architectures critics column last Tuesday that said buildings matter too, which was a riff on Black Lives Matter. A couple of days later, the papers, editors Stan Wishnowski resigned. What do you make of those events? Well, this is something that a lot of us in the business have been talking about for years. You know, when it comes to race, when it comes to diversity, news organizations have lagged behind where they are nowhere near where they should be on that front. And, you know, that plays out in a number of ways.

I mean, we need more newsroom leaders, top editors to not be white men. That's number one. If you look at the hiring numbers for black journalists, for Latino journalists, for, you know, for Asian-American or Native American journalists. All of those lag behind the population of the communities that these organizations serve. You know, we still have a majority white newsroom in a city where white people are not the majority.

And that's true of most papers, not just for the Philadelphia Inquirer. And so that's got a change. And there's also, they're clearly pay disparities where, you know, white journalists have gotten more merit raises and get better pay. So it's way past time to look at all of these things. And I think, you know, what happened, what happened with the dismissal or resignation, I guess, of our editor.

And, I mean, I think that's a signal that we're going to start looking at some of these other issues. And all I can say, it's way past time to do that. You can read Will Bunch's new column at the Philadelphia Inquirer and also subscribe to his newsletter. Will, thanks for coming on. Fine. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. David, let's end with a word about the New York Times. When his brother was running for president, James Bennett, the editor of the Times editorial page, recused himself from coverage. Now Bennett has recused himself from the New York Times completely.

Because on Wednesday, Bennett's digital op-ed page published a piece by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton that called for the use of military force against protesters. More on the process behind that op-ed in a minute. over 800 employees of the company signed a letter sent to top editors and executives protesting the op-eds publication. And on Sunday, David Bennett resigned. Kind of a wow moment. What did you make of that when you first heard about his resignation? Well, I was surprised. I mean, from everything we had come to know about the New York Times or the editorial page there in particular,

James Bennett was doing the job he had been hired to do, right? I mean, and that's inclusive of the Tom Cotton editorial, take issue with it or whatever. I mean, and you can see, you know, there's Bari Weiss who's taking her licks in any discussion in the New York Times over the past couple years on this podcast included, is out there defending it or, you know, lamenting the decision for Bennett to step down. as are many like-minded people,

the note about his resignation was nothing, if not, I mean, it was rather effusive in discussing Bennett's positive characteristics and the contributions he made to the paper. All that just goes to say, like, you know, as sort of deplorable as that op-ed was, it didn't really occur to me that, like, anybody who had any control over his employment situation would have been offended. Yeah, and, you know, I think Bennett's initial resource,

response to this was to defend it on that very familiar set of terms, right? You know, even, even arguments that are painful and dangerous, he wrote on Twitter, deserve public scrutiny and debate. That was his initial response. Well, then in a meeting with staff members, Bennett admitted something else that he had not read the piece before it was published. And then shortly afterwards, the time issued, the time, excuse me, issued a statement saying that the piece fell short of the newspaper standards. Now there's this huge editors note at the top that says, quote, the published piece presents as facts,

assertions about the role of cadras 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 remove them from the peace. The assertion that police officers, quote, bore the brunt of the violence

is an overstatement and should have been challenged as well. Peace did not wind up in the print edition of the New York Times. There's so many things going on here, sort of interlocking things, I think, at the same time. One is a little bit of the power of employees at a place like the New York Times that we just talked about with Jamel, right? Getting together and tweeting about this piece and saying, this sucks. This is terrible. And we're not going to grumble about that.

We're going to get together and actually put that out on Twitter and bring that not only to the Times' attention, but to the public's attention. Number one. Number two is this very old way, I think, of thinking about ideas like this that has persisted through journalism, where you have opinion editors who are publishing stories that they do not themselves believe, right? Ideas that they might even find offensive to get a reaction from people and then kind of going up, that's it. You know, well, hey, I don't believe any of this. These ideas might even be dangerous, but I guess I will put it on the op-ed page. that's a very old idea of opinion writing and opinion commissioning. And it just,

it feels to me like we may have reached the end of that era. And that that's not going to work anymore. And that thinking about the consequences of what you're publishing a little bit more and not just saying, well, this is an incendiary idea. Oh, well, that's not going to fly. What do you think? Well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that my, I think that that calculus it gets you to publish a piece for that reason is just inherently destructive, frankly. I mean, it's a bad idea. And I, and I think it's a, I don't think it's a good one. I don't, I agree with the idea that, with the notion that, you know, that all that, that even, you know, even ideas you disagree with should be voiced so that they can be argued. All that is true. I mean, I don't, I think the people that that loop this op-ed into that. argument are deliberately sort of missing the forest for the trees. There's a lot of reasons.

There are a lot of problems with that bigger than it having a different ideological point of view, right? I mean, that was the least, least of the offenses of what Tom Cotton wrote. But I do think that there is a, I think to a certain extent, there is the presumption of the op-ed page, be it the way that people sort of have historically talked about the New York Times. You think about the way people have talked about, you know, David Brooks at the New York Times over the past decades, right? Think of the way that people talk about the Wall Street Journal op-ed page vis-a-vis like the actual news coverage. I mean, the Washington Post, the same way. I think there's a sort of intimation, at least on the left, that papers like the Times and the Washington Post let the real ideology sneak out through the op-ed pages or that certain powers that be are letting this sort of,

you know, the id or whatever seeped through through the op-ed pages. And I think that whether or not that's true, that that sort of preconceived notion hurt the New York Times now more than anything else. I mean, more than anything except the content of the op-ed, because there's this presupposition that James Bennett or whoever's calling the shots there wanted this thing published, not as an intellectual exercise, but as a trial balloon. You know, I mean, I think that a lot of people saw it that way. And I don't know that I don't know that I necessarily buy into that, but I think of all of the problematic op-eds that we've discussed on this show and my general distaste for like getting people fired for just doing something for like messing up at their jobs. I think this is about as

problematic and in some ways as clear cut an instance as I could imagine. What do you make of this, Chris? I mean, yeah, it would be one thing, I think, if, this mistake was disconnected from the issues that people had with James Bennett at large, right? But this was just the most hyperbolic

mistake that all of his critics have been talking about for years, right? You know, this is Brett Stevens putting climate denialism in the section, but way worse. This is, you know, all of the Barry Weiss columns,

but worse. This is like, you know, it would be easy to say, oh, like, it's one mistake and he didn't read it, and it was just a failure of the editorial system. But, you know, this is just the result of the editorial system that he set up on purpose. And also, you know, maybe that is on the Salzberger's as well. You know, there was a Ben Smith piece in BuzzFeed last year before he was at the Times. And he talked to someone who, you know, a source within the Times. And that person was like, oh, yeah.

AG sees the page views and the attempt to be more centrist. And he loves that. And so this is like, you know, I agree that this is the wrong strategy to take. And I hope that this forces the times to reconsider where their opinion section is going. But I think it's disingenuous to say that this isn't what they wanted the whole time, right? Yeah. I think there was this moment a couple years ago where you saw this at the Atlantic. You saw this at the Times and the Washington Post where there was this huge number in the growth of opinion pieces, like thousand word takes essentially on a daily, that they were just churning them out on a daily basis.

And in fact, one of the reforms you saw on the, on the, after the Bennett thing was we're just going to publish fewer of these things. Because when you scale up that much, I think you are probably just going to have a certain number of bat. you're just encouraging bad takes, right, to both fill out the number and also to get a quote unquote idea of balance in there, right, with all your columnists. So I think, I think that's just, I do think that's absolutely what they want. They want tons of just tons of opinion pieces every single day. And I don't know how many of those, a lot of them on the times are quite good. I don't know how many of those you can get that are actually going to be really great on a daily basis at that scale. I really don't. Also, the big thing here, right, is, I mean, they don't have fact checkers.

And this is clear that you just, you have to have that. You can't, I, you know, obviously the Times pretty publicly cut most of their copy desk a few years ago at this point, right? But that's a thing that we prioritize here at the ringer, right? Everything that goes up, goes through a fact check. And I mean, obviously at this scale, you can't fact check literally everything. But I would think that something coming from a senator at a time like this would go through a fact checker. And I mean, the idea that nothing gets a look, that just seems absurd to me. I know that this section in particular wants to minimize the editing process, but that seems silly. The whole business of Bennett's saying I didn't see the op-ed was maybe not the, I think that may have in the end been one of the things that just functionally resulted in him leaving the times.

Because I understand there's this whole thing of I can't read every single word, especially when you have that kind of scale. I'm talking about on a daily basis, right? It's not just two printed pages anymore. It's tons of tons of verbiage. But when something like this happens, when something like this gets through and you say, well, I didn't read it. You've just at that point, you've sort of abdicated your role as editor, right? I didn't read it.

I didn't take a look at this to make sure that when I'm publishing this fairly incendiary piece, that it was okay. I just didn't do it. Yeah. I mean, this wasn't just like some offensive or dangerous thought that was like slipped into a random piece from a random freelancer, right? You could have seen this coming pretty obviously. if anyone said the words Tom Cotton and Slack,

I feel like that should have been a kind of a tip off to him that he should be checking that out. Well, and I don't, and I think that what we, I mean, we talked about this last show, the great sin here, well, I mean, one of the most significant sins here is giving him the space, right? I mean, I don't, I mean, is giving him platform to say the things

that you've already heard him say in the New York Times, right? He should have read it. That's his job as the, editor. But saying yes to this op-ed is the problem, right? I don't think there was, I mean, I don't think anybody would have been, would it would have suspected that Tom Cotton was going to moderate his views that he had publicly espoused when he sat down to type this thing out or have it, you know, clearly have a staffer type it out for the New York Times, right? You don't have to read it to know what, know that what was in there was problematic. And I mean, that also leads to

the issue of like when you're talking about the marketplace of ideas but then you don't actually carefully define like what your objective is right if you're kind of like just shrugging off any moral responsibility then how are you going to know like what's acceptable or not like james vetted he had a meeting with staffers in late 2018 that got leaked to the huffington post to ashley feinberg and there they were talking about like the richard spencer test as being like oh, how do you decide what's like outside of the bounds of what you can publish? And at the end of this, you know, long spiel that he goes on about that, he says, oh, you know, it's not a giant movement.

It's referring to like, you know, the white supremacist movement. And then here's the clearest illustration of, okay, well, what if the abhorrent thing is a giant movement, right? And if you never answer that question, you're going to run into this problem, right? And that was just, you know, James Bennett, to me, the biggest problem with his tenure is he just abdicated responsibility there. Yeah. And I completely agree. And as we said on the last show, I just think like there was a great place, great vehicle for Tom Cotton's views in the New York Times. It's called a New York Times news story. Right. Mm-hmm. A news story that examined it and that held it up to skepticism and reporting. That was it. And the idea that this two-day old tweet in neutered form became an op-ed is still. just absolutely mysterious to me. I don't get it at all.

But as you mentioned, David, James Bennett was a guy who was not only well liked at the New York Times. He was a guy who was seen as potentially running the paper when Dean McKay leaves. That ain't happening anymore. That's the press box. He is David Shoemaker.

I'm Brian Curtis, researched by Chris Almeida, whose voice you just heard, production magic by Erica Servantes. We're back Thursday. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.