With Gratitude to Pamela Paul

The New York Times has made a terrible mistake

This morning, my daughter asked me what job I would do if money was of no concern.

“The same one,” I said—not mentioning that I’ve made little money since the magazine industry imploded back in 2009.

“Really? It doesn’t seem that fun,” she said.

I told her that it used to be fun, back before journalism was allergic to the truth, before one paid a hefty social and sometimes financial price for saying what needed to be said—even though, ostensibly, that was the job. (Well, sometimes my job was to write about luxury real estate and concrete slab foundations, but that was, fun, too.)

After she left for school, I read Pamela Paul’s farewell column in The New York Times.

Paul writes that she “believed in the principles Adolph S. Ochs laid out on assuming control of The Times in 1896: ‘to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved’ and to ‘invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.”

Then she lists just a few of the columns that followed those principles:

A popular novelist ostracized for alleged “cultural appropriation.” A physician assistant who was excoriated on social media for standing up to bullies. A Palestinian writer whose appearance at a prominent book fair was canceled. An early beneficiary of affirmative action who dared to explore its unintended consequences. Vulnerable gay teenagers who described being misled by a politicized medical establishment into dubious gender transition treatments. A public university president who was driven away by a campus besieged with political division. Social work students and faculty undermined by a school that had betrayed its own principles. A public health expert who risked opprobrium from his peers by calling out his profession on groupthink.

“In a world in which too many people are inclined to think of politics and morality as team sports, one side good and the other side evil,” she writes, “nuanced stories that complicate facile narratives demand to be told.”

To which I say: HELL YES.

Paul’s nuanced pieces were especially important in the post-Tom Cotton op-ed era of the Times, in which employees claimed to be “harmed” by interacting with ideas they vehemently disagreed with. Young journalists have not only been trained to believe that emotional discomfort is harm, but that the point of journalism is to protect marginalized people, or reinforce their own worldview. Paul poked at all those assumptions.

I think the section worked hard to keep Paul isolated in the liberal anti-woke space; several times I, and other writers, had their op-eds rejected because “Pamela Paul has already written about this”—even when that wasn’t true. She had written about the subject of gender-affirming care, but not whatever particular angle we had pitched. Plus, they’ve had multiple editorials supporting gender-affirming care—detransition is just like quitting the swim team!—but nuanced views arguing about its problems and limits—very few (other than Jesse Singal’s recent piece).

Then again, Paul did write pieces about marginalized people. Notice how she categorizes her article on detransitioners: “Vulnerable gay teenagers who described being misled by a politicized medical establishment into dubious gender transition treatments.” This is a real concern, and has been since the very beginning of youth gender medicine—the original clinicians understood the well-established link between childhood gender nonconformity and adult homosexuality. “Prospective studies have shown that most [children with gender identity disorder] under 12 will not grow up to become transsexuals,” cautioned the clinicians who worked with the first young person to go through the Dutch protocol—in fact, most would be gay. Some called the gender identity disorder diagnosis, added to the DSM seven years after homosexuality was removed, “a backdoor maneuver to replace homosexuality.” In fact, 62 out of 70 kids in the original Dutch studies were same-sex attracted.

Paul writes that “the truth may be hard for some people to hear, but the truth should never be hard for journalists to tell.” Well, it has been difficult—not because some of us haven’t been willing to tell it, but because the powers that be have stood in our way. During the madness of Trump 2.0, the Times needs Paul’s nuanced voice more than ever. I find it shocking, sad, and scary that it won’t be there anymore.

I’m deeply grateful to Pamela Paul for her bravery, her dedication, her willingness to follow the truth wherever it led. And I’m devastated by the Times’ decision to let her go.