By Charles C. W. Cooke
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
In the Atlantic, Adam Rubenstein
relates the story of his terrible treatment by the New
York Times, which, back in 2020, made his continued employment essentially
impossible after he committed the grave journalistic crime of helping
commission a piece by Senator Tom Cotton for the opinion page. Some of the
tale’s details have to be read to be believed. This little anecdote, for
example, says more about our current moment than many books on the topic could
achieve in 200 pages:
On one of my first days at The
New York Times, I went to an orientation with more than a dozen other new
hires. We had to do an icebreaker: Pick a Starburst out of a jar and then
answer a question. My Starburst was pink, I believe, and so I had to answer the
pink prompt, which had me respond with my favorite sandwich. Russ &
Daughters’ Super Heebster came to mind, but I figured mentioning a $19 sandwich
wasn’t a great way to win new friends. So I blurted out, “The spicy chicken
sandwich from Chick-fil-A,” and considered the ice broken.
The HR representative leading the
orientation chided me: “We don’t do that here. They hate gay people.” People
started snapping their fingers in acclamation. I hadn’t been thinking about the
fact that Chick-fil-A was transgressive in liberal circles for its chairman’s
opposition to gay marriage. “Not the politics, the chicken,” I quickly said,
but it was too late. I sat down, ashamed.
Nevertheless, there’s one thing about the story that has
been bothering me, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Rubenstein. What
bothers me is that this piece was published and promoted by the Atlantic.
The subtitle of Rubenstein’s essay is, “I did what I was hired to do, and I
paid for it.” Which means that Rubenstein got one stage further than did my
former colleague, Kevin Williamson, who was hired by the Atlantic in
2018, and then fired after he’d written only one piece, after staff at the
magazine complained that the existence of his byline on the masthead made them
feel unsafe. Astonishingly, Kevin never actually did anything at the Atlantic to
which the institution objected, fairly or unfairly. He was dismissed for
comments that he’d made prior to his hiring, and with which the outlet was
familiar when it offered him a job. The editor of the Atlantic at
the time was Jeffrey Goldberg. The editor of the Atlantic is
still Jeffrey Goldberg. Does he have something to share with us?
I note this not to be churlish or contrarian, but to
observe that, far from signaling a retreat from illiberalism or a stand for
principle, the Atlantic‘s decision here seems to be motivated as
much by its desire to stick it to a rival as to separate itself from the crowd.
Anyone can publish the memoirs of a writer who was screwed over by someone
else. If the Atlantic really wanted to demonstrate that it has
learned its lesson, it would publish a critique of its own behavior, which, in
hindsight, was as responsible for setting the tone of our censorious era as
anything else I can recall.
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