Join Puck to listen to this article
Even by Times standards, it was a heavy week: Nick Kristof’s radioactive Opinion piece—a lengthy exposé alleging that Israeli prison guards had engaged in depraved and systematic sexual abuse of Palestinians—set in motion a series of high-pitched events. Pro-Israel advocates immediately accused the paper of antisemitism. Incredulous editorials in The Wall Street Journal and The Free Press followed. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu threatened to sue the Times for libel against the State of Israel. Whether it is actually possible for a nation to bring a libel case against a foreign newspaper is not the concern of this column; suffice to say that the threat itself achieved the desired conflagratory effect.
The Times is standing by its star columnist, and has issued several public statements asserting that the column, supported by numerous on-the-record victim accounts and independent human rights reports, was rigorously and meticulously fact-checked. In private conversations, the paper’s upper echelons stress that Nick is a two-time Pulitzer winner with a reporter’s DNA, and attest to a rigorous editing process and a lack of factual errors.
Nevertheless, many Times journalists told me they remain suspicious of Nick’s sourcing for the most incendiary allegations, skeptical that those sources would have cleared the standards of the newsroom rather than Opinion, and mildly miffed at the Pulitzer-eager columnist for bringing scrutiny on the paper in a piece that should have been in their jurisdiction. Above all else, many seemed exasperated by what they viewed as another instance of the Times brand being undercut by the actions of another department that, they feel, is not held to the same standards. Said one, “I am sick of being embarrassed by the Opinion section.”
The distinction between news and opinion matters only to the inmates at this point, and you can imagine how much time some reporters spend bitching about the reputational effects that an Ezra Klein or Bret Stephens piece of content has on the brand. But, in this case, the journalists’ sentiments toward Nick underscore just how much his column, despite being an Opinion piece, has become the newsroom’s issue—and the first real crisis of the otherwise mostly peaceful Joe Kahn era, the recent Dianna Russini scandal at The Athletic notwithstanding.
The Times has reported on two allegations of Israeli sexual abuse against Palestinians in the past, and the paper’s leadership says it feels no need to have the newsroom rereview Nick’s work—which, it maintains, contains no factual errors. Nevertheless, given the scrutiny, Nick has effectively put the onus on Joe and the Times newsdesk to engage in a referendum on the Times’s own editorial product—either by advancing the reporting or ignoring it, neither of which is likely to quell the issue or satisfy the critics.
The Times has endured many scandals in recent years, of course: Tom Cotton, Caliphate, the Trump suit, Russini, etcetera, to say nothing of the more distant Jayson Blair and Judith Miller controversies. But, in truth, those all had lower stakes and fewer dimensions. It would be hard to conceive of a more Timesian scandal than a legendary columnist pitting news vs. opinion by way of the Israel-Gaza conflict. The scandal is still unfolding, and every Times kremlinologist will be watching to see how both Joe and Opinion editor Katie Kingsbury navigate it. One imagines it could have implications for both of their futures at the paper, as well as the succession plan. And despite nearly half a dozen statements from the Times stressing that it’s time to move on, no one has.
But above all else, Kristofgate points to the Times’s broader institutional anxiety at a time when it is both more influential and more diversified than ever. The Times is not merely a newspaper anymore—it’s a $12 billion multifaceted lifestyle brand with a sprawling product ecosystem that has to grow and adapt while still preserving the trust and integrity of the core news report. The Opinion page has been among the most-fertile growth areas, as the Times tries to elevate the likes of Ezra and Lulu Garcia-Navarro to stardom and reap the benefits of their influence. But to hold attention in the political discourse is also to court the sort of controversy that Meredith Kopit Levien doesn’t need.
The Times leadership wants its readers to recognize the difference between news and opinion, just as they hoped to keep the Russini drama at arm’s length by emphasizing that she wrote for The Athletic—a distinction that likely still matters more internally than publicly. But good luck making that point with the protestors on Eighth Avenue, the Anti-Defamation League, or, indeed, the prime minister of Israel. And while it’s unlikely Bibi will even bring the lawsuit—he’s threatened the Times before—let alone force A.G. Sulzberger to stand trial in The Hague, this is the sort of thing that will certainly inspire subscription cancellations and follow the paper for years to come.