The New York Times is reshuffling its operations at the opinion section — reducing the frequency of its editorials while shrinking its roster of editorial board writers, according to a report.
The Gray Lady has reportedly offered several of its editorial board members new jobs within the opinion section or buyout packages if they choose to leave the company.
Mara Gay (who is frequently seen on left-leaning news channel MSNBC), Brent Staples, Jesse Wegman and Farah Stockman are editorial board members who were given the option of accepting a buyout, the news site Semafor reported on Monday.
“Publishing fewer, higher-quality editorials, the thesis goes, will lead to more audience attention,” according to the Semafor report.
The Times is also mulling possible changes to its endorsement policy, including backing candidates in races across the country, according to Semafor.
A Times spokesperson confirmed the accuracy of Semafor’s reporting and declined further comment.
Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, deputy editor Patrick Healy, and publisher AG Sulzberger are considering restructuring the opinion department by having more editors participate in the editorial board while reducing the number of staff dedicated exclusively to writing editorials, according to Semafor.
Earlier this year, longtime op-ed columnist Paul Krugman went public with his criticisms of Kingsbury and Healy — accusing the two executives of effectively censoring his opinion pieces before he left the newspaper late last year.
Krugman told Columbia Journalism Review that the two editorial bosses were “exerting a heavy hand on what went out under my name” and that as a result, he “approached Mondays and Thursdays (when his columns appeared) with dread.”
On the days his column appeared in the Times’ pages, he “often spent the afternoon in rage” after publication, according to CJR.
Krugman, who has gone on to launch his own independent newsletter on the Substack platform, blamed Healy, who was his deputy opinion editor.
The final straw for Krugman was when he was told by Kingsbury that his output would be reduced from two columns per week to just one.
Krugman also claimed that Kingsbury wanted to kill his newsletter, but the Times disputed that assertion.
Krugman contended that he was being singled out and that his former colleagues on the Times opinion page — including Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins — were not subjected to the same editorial scrutiny.
But Friedman, Dowd and Collins backed Healy and Kingsbury.
Kingsbury told CJR that Times columnists have been more heavily edited since she succeeded James Bennet as opinion editor in 2020.
Bennet stepped down as the New York Times opinion editor in June 2020 after facing intense criticism over the publication of an op-ed by US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
The piece, which argued in favor of deploying military force against protesters following the killing of George Floyd, sparked significant backlash from left-leaning staffers who claimed that it endangered black journalists.
