Bari Weiss, a liberal, is the courageous writer who resigned from the New York Times with a scathing letter blasting their alignment with the mob. That was just a first volley apparently.
The former opinion editor and contributor lamented the fall of the New York Times during an appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday.
“The reason that Twitter is the assigning editor of The New York Times is because the printing press isn’t the printing press anymore. It’s because the printing press is in each one of our pockets,” Weiss said.
“What I meant in that letter when I wrote that Twitter is the assigning editor,” she continued, “what I mean by that is in order to do our job well, writers and editors, we need to have a level of bravery and thick skin and fearlessness,” she added. “And when you’re living in fear of an online mob, you know, all it takes is a dozen people to repeat a lie about you — that you’re a racist, that you’re a transphobe, that you’re a bigot — for that lie to become true and that’s extremely dangerous.”
In the letter…
Her resignation came after her boss — also a liberal — James Bennett — was fired for simply posting an opinion piece by Senator Tom Cotton, a conservative. The cancel culture, the Twitter mob, got him fired.
“I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative,” she thundered to opinion editor A.G. Sulzberger. “New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.”
BILL MAHER, WE NEED PUSHBACK
For his part, Bill Maher is also decrying the cancel culture — now that it’s taking down their own. With that The Daily Beast and other cancel culturists on Twitter denigrated Maher.
“As a guy who did a show called ‘Politically Incorrect’ and another called ‘Real Time,’ thank you, because we need a pushback on cancel culture,” said Maher to Weiss. “What strikes me about it is the pushback is coming from liberals, and almost anyone who signed this letter is a liberal!”
-
The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
Bari Weiss described cancel culture as being less about criticism and more about “punishment” for people who do not ascribe to every cornerstone of left-wing political and social thought.
“We’re used to criticism. Criticism is kosher in the work that we do,” said Weiss, as reported by The Hill. “Criticism is great. What cancel culture is about is not criticism. It is about punishment. It is about making a person radioactive. It is about taking away their job. The writer Jonathan Rauch [of The Atlantic] called it ‘social murder.’ And I think that’s right.”
“It’s not just about punishing the sinner, it’s not just about punishing the person for being insufficiently pure. It’s about this sort of secondary boycott of people who would deign to speak to that person or appear on a platform with that person,” she added. “And we see just very obviously where that kind of politics gets us. If conversation with people that we disagree with becomes impossible, what is the way that we solve conflict? It’s violence.”
WATCH:
“Who are these perfect people out there in the world today, who have never made any mistake of any kind – and don’t they think it’s going to come back and bite them in the ass?”
Watch @BillMaher discuss cancel culture and race with @thomaschattwill and @bariweiss on #RealTime: pic.twitter.com/J3QMKENwHJ
— Real Time with Bill Maher (@RealTimers) August 1, 2020
