The decline of American journalism

The latest absurdity in American journalism is the forced resignation of the veteran New York Times reporter Donald McNeil Jr for uttering the word ‘nigger’ in front of a group of teenage tourists on a Times-sponsored trip to Peru. It has been justly ridiculed by many sane conservatives and even some courageous liberals. Although the infraction happened more than a year ago, calls for reason have had no practical effect against the demands online and inside the Times that McNeil be fired after the Daily Beast revealed the teenagers’ complaints. McNeil’s own defence is that he used the racial epithet as information with the high school students, not as an insult. This cut no ice with the hanging judges of Times-world. Neither did the discovery of many examples of the ‘N-word’ being published in the Times over the past two decades.

Instead, the paper doubled down. A piece written by the New York Times columnist Bret Stephens criticising the firing of McNeil by executive editor Dean Baquet and publisher A.G.