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The Best of the Times, The Worst of the Times

News and notes on James Bennet’s biblically long screed against the Gray Lady, A.G., illiberalism, and more.

James Bennet, the undeniably brilliant former New York Times Opinion editor, was ousted from the paper in June 2020 after greenlighting Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton’s op-ed calling for military intervention to quell the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd.
James Bennet, the undeniably brilliant former New York Times Opinion editor, was ousted from the paper in June 2020 after greenlighting Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton’s op-ed calling for military intervention to quell the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd. Photo: Kristoffer Tripplaar/AP Images
Dylan Byers
December 16, 2023

The New York Times, that venerable paragon of American journalism, can at times be a vain and self-aggrandizing institution. In fact, the infighting and backstabbing and generational feuding has birthed a veritable genre of nonfiction tomes, from Gay Talese’s The Kingdom and the Power to Times lifer Adam Nagourney’s recent opus, The Times. And within this genre lie all the various subgenres of exculpatory, eye-poking, vendetta journalism—the real fun stuff.