New York Times opinion columnist Bari Weiss caused a big stir last week when she suddenly
resigned from the paper and accused them of being too woke to function. Joining me to
talk about this topic is Farron Cousins, editor of the trial lawyer magazine. You know, I
gotta tell you something I'm on her side on this one. It's just, this, this is becoming
so disturbing. I describe, I describe the New York Times right now is a scene out of
home alone. The kids are in charge. Experienced editors and journalists are shamed. They're,
they're harassed if they really try to be journalists. Now she's got some other issues,
but this woman was right. What she wrote about this paper is absolutely correct.
Well, you know, Weiss says that the, the opinion board a little too woke for her, and she did
accuse them, you know, they, they, they've got this young way of thinking. But if you
look at the New York Times editorial board for just the editorial, most of these folks
are well into their golden years, or they're almost there. These are not a bunch of young
kids. You know, if they're suffering from woke culture, it's just, I think decades of
experience saying, hey, this is how the world is now. And, you know, maybe, ms. Weiss, wasn't,
you know, evolving enough. But at the same time, the New York Times is garbage. Like
she's right about that. They're a horrible paper. I just disagree with her on the reasons
why. It's, it's become total garbage, Farron.
Yeah. I mean, you know, I was a journalism major
at university of Florida. Very, I was news editing major. It's a tough major. You gotta
work to make it through there. It used to be, we studied the New York Times and we'd
say, well, this is how you, I wouldn't touch this newspaper right now. Look, let's back
up on this story just a little bit. She there's no question, she had written some material
about the rise of antisemitism, right? And they thought the, these, these kids, now you
call them what you want. When you really look at who was pushing this agenda, might've been
some old folks saying yes, because they didn't want to get harassed. They didn't want to
get bullied. They didn't want to get intimidated by these home alone kids who are running the
damn newspaper and it's become a train wreck. So, so she she's talking about the rise of
antisemitism and some folks on there say, well, what about Palestine? You know, you're
not treating the Palestinians, right. So they're critical of her. This mob mentality has taken
place at the New York Times. Just like it has in media, across the world right now Farron.
Well, Bari Weiss though, on the other hand too, has a bit of thin skin. And she does
have a history and this is evident in her Twitter feed, Glenn Greenwald has talked about
it ad nauseum, anytime somebody criticizes her criticizes a point she makes, she immediately
goes to that you're an anti-Semite. That is her fallback argument. She can't substantively
argue her points. I agree with that. I agree with that.
Which is a drawback. But again, at the same time, part of what makes these editorial boards
great is that they present differing opinions. And if you don't like what one of them wrote,
somebody's going to come along and write a counterpoint to it. That's the point of this
part of the paper. You, you, you, you had a great education.
Right. You, you really did. You had a really solid
education. Matter of fact, you came to work with me when you were what, 22, 21.
21, yeah. 21 years old. And I recognized back then you
had a great solid education, and I'm sure you studied John Stuart Mills, just like I
did. And John Stuart Mills, who wrote the most important book on Liberty said this,
that he wouldn't even call it group think back then. But he said, there's a really,
the, democracy relies on rich diversity. So you may not agree with him. You have a right
to shout, but you don't have a right to shout them down and saying, you can't say this.
What we've become is this group, I mean, we're social intolerance. We were handcuffing the
truth. We, we, what what's we, we can't even adapt, we can't even adapt to a new idea that's
thrown out. And I saw a great article, great article that I think summed it up. A lot of
these kids coming through journalism school, and now they're out in what I call them social
media journalists is what they are. That's what, they're social media journalists.
Yeah. And so these social media journalists, a lot
of them didn't even study civics. They didn't study constitutional law to even understand
the importance of the first amendment. Take, I mean, you do. You're the exception. You
came up with that same generation man. Right. And I think the best example of that,
which actually Bari Weiss talks about is the recent op-ed in New York times by Tom Cotton.
Tom Cotton puts out this horrendous op-ed says, let's send the military to take out
the protesters. It was horrible. It was absolutely against what this country and constitution
says is okay. But it was important to put it out there. A lot of people on the left,
a lot of my friends and colleagues furious that it was out there, but that's the point
of it. It gets people talking. It gets people thinking. And even if you disagree with it,
it shows you what those other people are thinking. And to be honest, puts into perspective how
extreme some of them can be. Okay, we're gonna.
And we need that. We need discussion. We're going stay, we're going to stay on this
topic a little longer and here it, here's, here's my take on it. When we get to the point
where you have a bunch of intolerant kids who really don't understand the importance
of constitutional rights, they don't understand how dangerous it is. Look they, maybe they
didn't read animal farm. Right.
Maybe they didn't read it. Maybe they didn't read 1984. Maybe somebody in school never
said, here's the dangers with, with you not permitting somebody to say something, even
though you disagree with it. And I don't know how you jumped through it, man. I, I'm always
fascinated, I keep coming back to you, because I'm always fascinated. You came out of it.
You know, when, when you came to work with me, I recognized, well, you know, you, you
call balls and strikes. These kids can't even call balls and strikes. The New York Times
has become garbage because we can't read it without suspecting that it's being driven
by ideology. Okay. It's ideological trash. It's not news reporting.
Right. And look, I disagree with most of what Bari Weiss has had to say. I don't even think
she's being forthcoming in why she resigned. I think there's something else there. She
is not underprivileged. She charges $50,000 to go out and give a speech. She is not being
silenced. But there are legitimate concerns with the New York Times like we have discussed
because we've discussed the New York Times being trash for years. I mean, goes back to
the Yaz story that they wouldn't print. Oh, exactly. Exaclty.
And, you know, like Donald Trump says, the media is horrible. Well, it is. But not for
the reasons you say and that's how I feel with Bari Weiss. Yeah, the paper is bad.
Well, one other thing, you know, I'm a fan of Green, of Glenn Greenwald. I like Glenn
Greenwald. I like him. But when I looked at the Lee Fang story.
Yeah. When I saw what they did to Lee Fang, some
itty bitty brain, some, one of his or his coworkers with an itty bitty brain was offended
by some nonsense. He didn't, I read it. It was nothing, but she was offended about it
because it's like these kids grow up with and they start believing that the bumper stickers
on back of their car, that mom and pop put on the back of their car saying, my kid's
really bright. My kid's exceptional. They grow up with that. And unfortunately it's
made their, it's just, it's made them not into objective thinkers, not into journalists,
but as into pathetic ideologues. Right. Well, and they also, they do kind of
have this, you know, this isn't just limited to them. It's, it's a lot of people, not just
that generation, either. They have an undeserved, an unearned sense of I'm the best at what
it is I, you know, you do have to earn, arrogance has to be earned. And these folks just haven't
earned it yet. Yes, yes.