Rich may be out for this episode, but Noah Rothman keeps the show running smoothly. Today’s topic? The New York Times.

An official with the union representing Times writers recently published a letter about the “climate of terror” in the workplace — focusing particularly on the trans issue. When asked about this, Maddy replies that she has “absolutely no doubt that the New York Times is a hostile work environment. I just don’t think it is a hostile work environment for the reasons that the union president suggested. We’ve seen this at the Times for years now. In 2020, there was the revolt after Tom Cotton had an op-ed. We had Bari Weiss’s departure. . . . What’s going on at the Times is I think that you have this activist wing of journalists who see themselves first and foremost, not as, as Orwell put it, people who are tasked with reporting or commenting on what is right under their nose, but with people who are tasked with this incredible moral self importance.”

Dominic agrees with Maddy, and reminds listeners that this type of controversy is nothing new. “These controversies do seem to break out every once in a while with the New York Times,” he said. “That somehow, it is insufficiently left-wing, or even worse than that, it is somehow subversively right-wing in the way that is only detectable to a very small group of progressive activists. And this is of course not true. I think we all know what side of the political divide the New York Times comes down on. And they will continue to do so as they have since, well, at least the 1950s, because William F. Buckley Jr. — in the mission statement for National Review magazine from 1955 — specifically calls out the left-wing bias of the New York Times.”

Listen below for more on this story, as well as our panelists’ thoughts on Pete Buttigieg’s poor job performance and Biden’s climbing approval numbers.