The New York Times is about to begin an all-staff meeting w/ the paper's leadership to discuss the Op-Ed by Senator Cotton. I neither expect nor deserve to have front-of-line mic time there, so will speak here.
I say what follows as a longtime @nytimes employee and foreign correspondent who covered police, military, and intelligence service violence against peaceful citizens in authoritarian states.
I also say it as a former @usmc infantry officer who commanded a Marine company federalized to deploy into the greater LA area in the 1992 to quell unrest. (My company deployed to Compton.)
With these two sets of experience, I know first-hand the grave risk to citizens, including risks not obvious, related to assigning military units to this kind of duty, and am also aware of how such action could further the militarization of American society already underway.
Amplifying a call from an official of the ruling party for a federal crackdown of aggrieved citizens exercising rights of assembly & speech was wrong on its face, and made more so by a glaring, gratuitous insult included therein.
Since the senator had made essentially the same call a full news cycle earlier in the week, his Op-Ed also lacked news value. My colleagues have identified factual issues w the piece as well.
My job is principally one of description, not prescription. I do not prescribe a solution but urge the paper’s leadership to listen to and work with the staff to find one, or several.
I will now join the meeting, and listen. /end.
