{"id":169394,"date":"2025-04-03T16:22:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/pamela-pauls-last-new-york-times-column\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T16:22:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:22:39","slug":"pamela-pauls-last-new-york-times-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=169394","title":{"rendered":"Pamela Paul’s last New York Times column"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve enjoyed her work these past couple of years. I hate to see her go. A taste:<\/p>\n

This is my final column for The Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the memo I wrote three years ago when applying for this job after 11 years at The Times Book Review, I vowed \u201cto write to Times readers rather than to Twitter or to Slack.\u201d I knew my positions, fundamentally liberal but often at odds with what had become illiberal progressive dogma, would ruffle feathers. But as I explained, \u201cI want to write about that vast center\/liberal space and to address what people really think and believe but are often too afraid to say.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I also stipulated that I could do this job only if I quit Twitter, which had by then become a forum that could lead journalists to mistake the loudest voices for the most legitimate or to temper their positions so as to avoid social media blowback. The list of social media vortexes today includes not only Twitter\u2019s successor, X, but also Bluesky, Threads, Reddit and countless other online forums.<\/em><\/p>\n

I did not want my positions to be unduly guided by what others might think, be they friends or strangers, office colleagues or online trolls, activist organizations or institutional powers. And the lure of affirmation can be just as potent as the fear of attack.<\/em><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t looking to be loved or even liked. I had friends and family for that. I wanted to write what I believed to be the truth, based on facts and guided by fairness, but never driven by fear.<\/em><\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t because I was insensitive to other people or enjoyed getting death threats but because I believed in\u00a0the principles<\/a>\u00a0Adolph S. Ochs laid out on assuming control of The Times in 1896: \u201cto give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved\u201d and to \u201cinvite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.\u201d Readers\u2019 respect for those values was \u2014 and is \u2014 more important to me than readers\u2019 agreement with any one of my opinions.<\/em><\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t follow that approach if I were looking over my shoulder, checking my feed or worrying how anyone would react.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a columnist, I covered a wide range of subjects, including academic freedom, culture, language, women\u2019s rights, gay rights, higher education, science and health, and politics, including several columns dedicated to how the Democratic Party had lost its way.<\/em><\/p>\n

But the reporting I\u2019m most proud of is when I used my voice to stand up for people whose lives or work had come under attack, whether they were public figures or were dragged into the public eye because they\u2019d dared to speak or act in ways that unjustly elicited professional or social condemnation:\u00a0A popular novelist<\/a>\u00a0ostracized for alleged \u201ccultural appropriation.\u201d A\u00a0physician assistant<\/a>\u00a0who was excoriated on social media for standing up to bullies. A\u00a0Palestinian writer<\/a>\u00a0whose appearance at a prominent book fair was canceled. An\u00a0early beneficiary of affirmative action<\/a>\u00a0who dared to explore its unintended consequences. Vulnerable\u00a0gay teenagers<\/a>\u00a0who described being misled by a politicized medical establishment into dubious gender transition treatments. A\u00a0public university president<\/a>\u00a0who was driven away by a campus besieged with political division.\u00a0Social work students and faculty<\/a>\u00a0undermined by a school that had betrayed its own principles. A\u00a0public health expert<\/a>\u00a0who risked opprobrium from his peers by calling out his profession on groupthink.<\/em><\/p>\n

All found themselves at odds with the people or communities that had once supported them, a disorienting place to be, especially in these polarized times. In a world in which too many people are inclined to think of politics and morality as team sports, one side good and the other side evil, nuanced stories that complicate facile narratives demand to be told.<\/em><\/p>\n

Several years ago, The Times ran a campaign with the tagline \u201cThe truth is hard.\u201d The way I\u2019ve interpreted this is that the truth may be hard for some people to hear, but the truth should\u00a0<\/em>never\u00a0be hard for journalists to tell. In our efforts to shed light on difficult subjects or to question conventional wisdom, we should never refrain from speaking what we believe to be the truth. Not because we think others can\u2019t handle it and certainly not because we cannot handle it ourselves.<\/em><\/p>\n

Readers are smarter and more thoughtful than the news media sometimes gives them credit for. They don\u2019t need our protection. When journalists hold back, readers can sense they aren\u2019t getting the full story. This sows doubt and skepticism at a time when readers desperately need news they can trust.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read the rest here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve enjoyed her work these past couple of years. I hate to see her go. A taste: This is my final column for The Times. In the memo I wrote three years ago when applying for this job after 11 years at The Times Book Review, I vowed \u201cto write to Times readers rather than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[25079,60007,67984,52457,67985,24502,4319,3482],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-169394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-column","tag-columnists","tag-new-york-times","tag-pamela","tag-pamela-paul","tag-pauls","tag-times","tag-york"],"yoast_head":"\nPamela Paul's last New York Times column - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=169394\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pamela Paul's last New York Times column - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve enjoyed her work these past couple of years. 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