Employees at The New York Times are reportedly in a simmering generational "civil war," debating whether or not the newspaper should abandon longstanding journalistic norms in the age of Trump.
"I’ve been feeling a lot lately like the newsroom is split into roughly the old-guard category, and the young and ‘woke’ category, and it’s easy to feel that the former group doesn’t take into account how much the future of the paper is predicated on the talent contained in the latter one," a Times employee told Vanity Fair.
"I know a lot of others at the paper with similar positions to mine, especially women and people of color, who feel that senior staff isn’t receptive to their concerns."
The younger staffers are reportedly angry with the hire of op-ed contributors Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss, the decision not to fire accused harasser Glenn Thrush, and being banned from participating in political demonstrations like the Women's March.
The Vanity Fair piece comes after Slack transcripts leaked to the Huffington Post showed reporters complaining about Weiss and constant "microaggressions" at the paper.
In both stories, the "woke" faction of the Times complained that opinion columnists were allowed to tweet their opinions on Twitter, but "a Times reporter could conceivably get into hot water for tweeting something that seems to endorse gun control or Black Lives Matter."
The more institutionally-minded Times staffers stress the need for neutrality and impartiality. "We do not see ourselves, and we do not wish to be seen, as partisan media," said managing editor Joe Kahn. "That means that the news and opinion divide."