On Wednesday night, journalists, writers and activists on Twitter announced that they would unsubscribe from the New York Times after its Opinion section ran a piece by Tom Cotton, a Republican Senator from Arkansas.
The piece, titled “Send in the Troops”— which they later renamed “Tom Cotton: Send in the Troops”— called for military action to quell protests against police brutality happening across the country. The editorial was filled with incendiary language. “Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic,” Cotton wrote. “…nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.”
Immediately, journalists from several publications condemned the Times’ decision to publish the op-ed and said it put the lives of the publication’s black staff in danger.
Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger. pic.twitter.com/dhEE8K64m7
— Lindsey Underwood (@thunderwooddd) June 3, 2020
Running this puts @nytimes’ Black staff in danger. Free speech does not mean publishing white supremacist propaganda. pic.twitter.com/Q6FXCUfGnP
— natalie g (@nataliereports) June 4, 2020
Running this put Black @nytimes staff in danger.
(I have already sent an email.) https://t.co/oEgYLtDl7d pic.twitter.com/0y6r1Vmi6O
— Joseph Kohlmann (he/him/his) (@jkohlmann) June 3, 2020
Notably, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the recent Pultizer-prize winning journalist who created the 1619 project for that newspaper, spoke out against the editorial.
I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but to not say something would be immoral. As a black woman, as a journalist, as an American, I am deeply ashamed that we ran this. https://t.co/lU1KmhH2zH
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) June 4, 2020
After widespread backlash, the Opinion editor at the New York Times, James Bennet, justified the editorial team’s decision to publish Cotton’s piece.
I want to explain why we published the piece today by Senator Tom Cotton. https://t.co/GvWwf7i0Wu
— James Bennet (@JBennet) June 3, 2020
“Times Opinion owes it to our readers to show them counter-arguments, particularly those made by people in a position to set policy,” he wrote as part of a Twitter thread.
For many, it was too little too late. Some pointed out that free speech was not the same as giving someone a platform on the New York Times, arguably the most influential newspaper in the world.