The following article is from my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory in The Hill
Sometimes it takes an outsider to see things clearly.
The Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ) ranks as a fiercely independent newspaper, much like the Swiss people themselves. The high-quality Zurich newspaper is no fan of Donald Trump. It is, therefore, noteworthy that the NZZ views with alarm for the journalism profession recent events at the New York Times.
In its opinion piece, the NZZ wonders whether we are seeing the “end of the newspaper as a place of free thought and the beginning of a moralistic culture of denunciation.” In doing so, it contends that the New York Times would be no different than the “right-wing media” that it often criticizes as being overly partisan instead of purely objective.
The NZZ’s case in point: The forced resignation of James Bennet, the opinion editor of the NYT. His sin, apparently, was publishing a guest commentary by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) entitled “Send in the Troops.” Cotton’s piece endorsed a military intervention against the sometimes violent protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Cotton cited the Insurrection Act, a federal law dating to 1807, as the legal basis for such a military intervention.
