After 25 whole years, the internationally renowned economist, Paul Krugman, is a past of them, leaving the newspaper to intervene in his work but also for strange behavior towards his face.
“As many who read me know, last month I retired from my post as an opinion in the New York Times – a job I have done for 25 years. Despite what the Times wrote for me, it was not a happy solution to cooperation. Under no circumstances have I run out of energy or issues to write. But from my own point of view, the nature of my relationship with the Times had degenerated to a point where I could no longer remain. ”
“Charles Kaiser wrote a good article in the Columbia Journalism Review about my departure. What I want to do in this post is to add even more frame. Let’s be clear: I don’t intend to have a constant confrontation with the Times: I came, I saw, I felt that I had to leave and proceeded.
But I think his story because I left says something important about the current state of journalism, ”he adds meaningfully.
The reasons left after 25 whole years
The background: By about 2017, I felt extremely happy with my role in the Times, for several reasons.
First, I felt that I had finally been able to adapt to writing opinion articles on broad consumption. When the Times hired me in late 1999, I was a professor of finance who occasionally wrote about a wider audience. And the creation of essays in simple 800 words for readers without financial background is, say, a little different from the compilation of 5000 words in academic magazines full of equations and charts for a small professional community. For a while I fought with the transition.
But I finally understood it. I was really pleased with the effort I made in summarizing an argument on his basics, expressing it in ordinary language and making it interesting. In addition, I believe that my text has influenced national discourse, especially on issues such as George Bush’s attempt to privatize social security, the path to the law on affordable care (despite Obama’s initial reluctance) and the unjustified fiscal panic in early 2010s.
In my first 24 years in the Times, from 2000 to 2024, I encountered very few publishing restrictions on how and what I wrote. For most of this period my text went straight to a curator, who sometimes suggested that I make some changes – for example, bluntly a claim that undoubtedly exceeded the proven facts or re -expression of a quote that the author did not understand well, And that readers would probably also have a problem understanding.
But the editing was very light. Over the years, several copy authors complained that I had nothing to do with them, because I was completely adapted to the needs, with clear writing and without many obscure technical terms.
This light treatment prevailed even when I took places that made the Times leadership very nervous. My first and repeated criticism of Bush’s desire to invade Iraq have led to several tense meetings with the administration. In these meetings, they urged me to reduce the tones. However, the texts were published as I wrote them. And in the end, I believe that the Times – who finally apologized for their role in promoting war – were happy to have taken a position against the invasion. I think it was my best time.
But I discovered with frustration last year, when today’s Times authors and I began to discuss our differences that the current administration and top authors seem to completely ignore this important part of the story of the newspaper and my role in it.
Krugman’s blog
Secondly, the previous management and authors of the Times had allowed me to participate in the highest level financial discussions of the time. The echo of the 2008 financial crisis has led to a large boom in economic blogs. Significant, complex discussions about the causes of the crisis and the political answer were more or less real time. I was able to participate actively in these discussions, because I had my own blog for finances, under the Times umbrella but separate from the column. The blog, without treatment, was even more technical – sometimes much more technical – and more relaxed than the column.
Then, step by step, all the things that did the writing on the Times were worth it. The Times took the blog out of their umbrella in late 2017.
For a while I tried to make up for the loss of the blog with postings on Twitter. But even before Elon Mask Nazi the site, the tweet yarns were an uncomfortable, lower substitute for blog posts. So in 2021 I opened a Substack account in my attempt to publicize technical material I could not publish on the Times.
Time management has become very difficult. When I explained to them that I really needed a way out where I could publish more detailed graphs, etc., they agreed to allow me to have a Times newsletter (twice a week), where I could post the Surpris my job I had previously posted on my blog.
In September 2024 my newsletter was suddenly suspended by the Times. The only reason I was given was a “rhythm problem”: according to the Times, I wrote very often. I do not know why this was considered a problem, as my newsletter was never intended to be published as part of the regular newspaper. In addition, it had proven popular with many readers.
Also, in 2024, the processing of my regular columns was converted from a light touch into extremely interventional. I went from one level of processing to three, with a direct author and his superior supervising the column, and sometimes making meaningful re -registrations before going to copy. These repetitions almost always included change of tone, introducing unnecessary features and, as I saw, false equivalence.
I would register the changes to restore the essence of my original argument. But as I said to Charles Kaiser, I began to feel that I was making more effort – especially emotional energy – to correct the editorial damage than to write the original articles. And the end result of the front-back was often flat and colorless.
Something Still: I encountered efforts by others to dictate me what I could (and I couldn’t) write, usually in the form of “you’ve already written about it”, as if they never need more than one article to effectively cover a topic . If this was the rule during my previous term, I could never support my position for Obamacare, or against the privatization of social security, and – the most alarming – against the invasion of Iraq. In addition, all the authors of the public opinion were banned from being criticized in the media. Almost the kind of rule that would allow a columnist to say that “we are told in the war.”
I felt that my byline was used to create a story that was no longer mine. So I left.
This is my story. What are the wider impact?
The message about the future of journalism
“The words,” once wrote John Mayard Keynes, “should be a little wild, because it is the attack of thoughts on the unconscious.” This has always been my attitude towards writing opinion. The columns of the newspapers should be controversial, because the main point is to make people re -think their affairs. I was saying, half, that if a column did not create a large number of hate messages, it meant that I had wasted the space.
However, what I felt during my last year in the Times was a boost to tranquility, to avoid anything very directly in a way that could anger some people (especially on the right). I guess my question is, if these are the basic rules, why bother to have a column of opinion?
Perhaps there was a time when readers were stationary for sober, boring articles – the most boring title of the story, “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative”, was the title of an article in the Times – because they were considered to be the views of The Establishment. And I feel that the administration of the Times still believes that it lives in this world. However, in today’s wide -ranging information environment (and misinformation), the boring writing simply disappears without a trace.
In a somewhat different subject, it was clear to me that the administration with which I had to do did not understand the difference between the opinion and the existence of a documented, based on reality. When the newsletter was canceled, I tried to point out that I was almost the only regular columnist to make politics. Their answer was to indicate other writers who often expressed views on politics, economic and more. In vain I tried to explain that there is a difference between having opinions on finances and knowing how to read analyzes and recent research work. Everything fell into the void.
So this is the story of my retirement from the Times. Despite the difficulties of the last year, I remain deeply grateful to the Times who hired me and gave me decades of freedom to express my views on such a large audience. And I’m sorry to abandon loyal readers who are still based on old -fashioned media and may not follow me on the substack. But my situation had become unbearable and I didn’t even feel like my regret for the new direction and recovery of my freedom, ”concludes Krugman.
