The New York Times remains haunted by the Tom Cotton op-ed almost 4 years later

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It has been nearly four years since the publication of what's commonly referred to as the "Tom Cotton op-ed" and to this day people are still talking about it – not regarding what was actually written by the Republican senator, but rather the newsroom drama that stemmed from it.

On June 3, 2020, The New York Times published Cotton's piece, titled "Send in the Troops," which made an argument in favor of the president deploying the military to quell the George Floyd riots that sparked havoc in cities across the country.

What followed was an unprecedented backlash from within the paper. Dozens of Times employees rushed to social media in a coordinated campaign, many of them echoing the phrase "Running this put Black @nytimes staff in danger."

Days later, the Times updated Cotton's piece with a lengthy editor's note declaring it "fell short of our standards and should not have been published." Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, who initially defended the op-ed's publication, later reversed himself, blaming "a rushed editorial process." Two members of the Times Opinion staff, James Bennet and Adam Rubenstein, were pushed out at the Times as a result. Another staffer, James Dao, was reassigned to a different department.

NY TIMES REVOLT OVER REPUBLICAN OP-ED FORCES PAPER TO BACK DOWN

DePauw