NYT executive editor Dean Baquet sums up 'the job of the New York Times' — and accidentally gives away the MSM's game

Sarah D | 3:19 PM on February 22, 2022

The New Yorker recently did a piece on New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, entitled “Dean Baquet Never Wanted to Be an Editor.”

“Dean Baquet Never Should Have Been an Editor” would’ve been a much better headline.

“The job of the New York Times should in the end be to come out with the best version of the truth.” A new interview with @deanbaquet, ahead of his expected retirement. https://t.co/Uw2Fqg43pY

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) February 22, 2022

Say what, now?

"version"?! https://t.co/TIYw92ifi4

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) February 22, 2022

"Best version of the truth" 🤣🤣🤣

— Hugh Jass… (@beard_emerson) February 22, 2022

More from the New Yorker:

How do you think the Times should handle incorporating into newspaper culture young reporters who might not have come up in daily newsrooms like you did, who come from outlets that have a political point of view?

I feel very strongly—and I know this is not embraced by everybody—that nobody is objective. The system of “objectivity” (and I know that’s going to be a bad word) was designed to create a system—Wesley Lowery is right when he describes that—in which the organization’s job was to make sure that whatever your perspective was it didn’t get in the way of reporting the truth. I believe in that very strongly. That’s not the job of every institution. But the job of the New York Times should, in the end, be to come out with the best version of the truth, with your own political opinion held in check by editors and editing. Not everybody believes that, but I believe that. And I think that if you come to work for the New York Times—if you really want to work for the New York Times—you have to embrace that, because that’s what the New York Times is. Independence means being independent of everybody and of ideology—it just does.