There is discontent brewing in The New York Times opinion section. James Bennet, an editorial-page editor of The Times, and someone who has been mentioned as a future contender for the Times’s top newsroom job, has made some hires that the Internet has not been happy about. Take Quinn Norton, a tech journalist who was hired by Bennet. But then, Norton’s Internet history was quickly exposed and people on Twitter publicized her well-documented friendship with a neo-Nazi and surfaced old tweets in which she used racial and sexual epithets. In one of the shortest Times careers in history, Bennet announced Norton’s hiring, and then, just hours later, that she and the Times had decided to “go our separate ways.” Bennet has also hired a climate change skeptic and a man who recently celebrated U.S. Olympian Mirai Nagasu, who was born in California, by tweeting, “Immigrants: they get the job done.” On the anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration, Bennet devoted the entire editorial page to letters from Trump supporters. Since all of this, some Times journalists are worried that the section is damaging the paper’s credibility. Some feel embarrassed. The newsroom is asking: What is the responsibility to provide equal time in circumstances like illiberal and sometimes unscientific positions?
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