The New York Times: How did an anti-Semitic caricature end up in the newspaper

"I do not think anyone in our office believes for a second that there is an institutionalized problem of anti-Semitism at the NYT," said a staff member of an international bureau. "But as in all newsrooms that have undergone a radical restructuring in recent years, the significant amount of checks and balances have been removed and it could disappear without being seen by a second pair of eyes, which worries journalists and editors. "

Like most other interviewees in this story, the staff member kept anonymous to speak frankly about their employer.

James Bennet, editor in charge of the Opinion section, declined to be interviewed. But Wednesday, he published an editorial criticizing his own department. "The excuses are important," said the editorial board, "but the Times' fundamental obligation is to focus on conducting flawless journalism and on the clear editorial expression of its values".

Later in the day, Sulzberger talked about drawing for the first time. In an internal memo, he wrote that "we take disciplinary action" with the involved editor and making a series of procedural changes to "ensure proper oversight". On the one hand, there will be more cartoons subscribed.

"Our journalists work hard every day to help people understand a large and diverse world and to ensure that prejudices of all kinds are not part of our report," he said. in his memo. "Although we were assured that there was no ill will involved in this error, we were far from meeting our standards and values ​​in this case."

These are words much stronger than the newspaper originally used to address the controversy.

That's what did not go well

The Portuguese artist António Moreira Antunes draws political cartoons for 45 years. He recently decided to deal with relations between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently re-elected.

The result was the image of a Netanyahu as a dog on a leash, the Star of David around his neck, held by a blind Trump wearing sunglasses and a yarmulke.

"It would not surprise me if it was published in Tehran or Damascus, but it does not belong to the New York Times or any credible media," he said.

The Antunes drawing was printed for the first time by Expresso, a relatively small weekly in Lisbon. He reached The Times via a syndication service called CartoonArts International. For years, the Times, in turn, transported CartoonArts content on its own licensing site, distributing cartoons to other outlets.

A Times editor in charge of choosing a cartoon to fill a portion of Thursday's international edition, examined the latest options in the CartoonArts collection, chose the one from Antunes and moved on to something else, said two sources.

The caricature – unrelated to the opinions that surround it – appeared in the Thursday newspaper in the Times version published outside the United States.

The International Edition has a valuable reader base, but it is largely an afterthought at the Times headquarters in New York. This is not "a big priority," says one of the sources.

Many staff members in New York stated that they did not know that the international edition was wearing caricatures, unlike the national edition. So, the indignation that was about to explode was a surprise for several reasons.

The caricature did not attract much attention on Thursday. According to the Times, the editors did not even know it. This seems to be a major problem: there were not many eyes on the page before making it go to the printing press. The International Opinion section reports to Bennet.

The Times declined to comment on why the page was not revised in advance.

According to the newspaper, the editors "learned about the caricature on Friday" and "immediately began to write a note from the editorial staff".

But the Times' initial response did not mean a lot of urgency. It may be because the international edition is not published on weekends – so the note could appear no earlier than Monday.

The Times admitted in the editors' initial note that the cartoon contained "anti-Semitic tropes", was "offensive" and constituted a "judgment error".

Other media have been looking for the cartoon in question. It's become a big story. Jewish organizations have condemned the Times for allowing the publication of the cartoon. Media critics asked why the Times was secret. Members of Trump 's inner circle called the Times and asked why the newspaper did not apologize for the mistake.

Times officials wanted the note to be an excuse, according to one source. But it contained no apologetic language.

"My feeling is that the management was surprised at not knowing how important the design was for the offended," said a Times staffer.

And the criticism has continued to come. On Monday, Trump criticized the cartoon and complained that the Times did not apologize for "false and corrupt information."

"Self-inflicted injuries"

In most newspapers, including The Times, there is a clear separation between the newsroom and the Opinion department. Staff members sometimes move from one to the other, and friendships cover the gap, but they operate independently. And they sometimes get in each other's way.

Newsroom employees who spoke with CNN Business said they were shocked to learn the drawing. But some of them have pointed to past controversies in the Opinion section, suggesting a series of self-inflicted wounds.

Six months later, the department published an animated short film showing Trump and Vladimir Putin in love, raising accusations of homophobia.

"Many Times LGBTQ employees have seen the video as a sign of disrespect and homophobia," said the diversity committee of the Times employees union in a letter.

The Times' leaders were clearly in disagreement and the animation remains online. The entire project recently won a Webby Award.

"Between the homophobic Trump-Putin cartoon and the anti-Semitic material that they published this weekend, it seems like they continue to shoot themselves in the foot," said a Times reporter, the qualifying as "self-inflicted injuries".

But for all Bennet 's critics, even internally, he also has many supporters. He is a close ally of A.G. Sulzberger, the editor of the newspaper, who took the reins of his father late 2017.

A staff member who supports Bennet said that he and his team had "tried to diversify the range of contributors in a deeply polarized environment."

A "reason" or a publication too stretched?

The caricature has become the last flash point of a long fight against the cover of Israel by the Times. Anti-Semites have long ridiculed it as a "Jewish newspaper", citing the religious roots of their family owners. And the Times' critics, mostly on the right, have long accused the newspaper of hostility towards the Jews.

At Monday's protest, Dershowitz said the Times "was so often wrong in Israel, to the Jewish people – the only good thing the New York Times has ever done for the Jewish people is that it's a good thing. he lied to the notion that Jews control the media and use it to defend their own interests ".

Conservatives say progressive institutions, such as the Times' Opinion section, have reacted easily to left-wing demonstrations of Jewish hatred.

Some readers "see a model," said one of the Times' staff members. "The model is so receptive or encouraging to critics of Israel, especially the current government, that critics turn into anti-Semitism or blind you to anti-Semitism."

Wednesday's editorial addressed the following topic: "We have been and remain convinced supporters of Israel and believe that good faith criticism should help strengthen it in the long term by helping it

to remain faithful to its democratic values ​​".

He stated that the newspaper as an institution was in no way anti-Semitic, but had to think about how the newspaper was perceived and why the caricature had been allowed.

"How have the most egregious expressions of anti-Semitism become almost undetectable for editors who think that fighting bigotry is part of their job?"

The column has received more than a million page views since Sunday, a very high total for any editorial, said one of the staff members.

On Tuesday, Stephens told CNN Business that Bennet was not reluctant to publish this column and that few changes had been made to the draft, apart from the revisions.

Bennet's willingness to allow such self-criticism is well reflected in the newspaper, Stephens said.

Self-criticism, yes, but others blamed the newspaper for not providing more information. The Times abolished its position as an internal public editor two years ago. The office of the public publisher was responsible for handling the complaints of the readers and obtaining answers from the newspaper.

Sunday's apology statement said "only one publisher" chose the design "because of a flawed process". The Times refused to name the person. Most sources who spoke to CNN said they did not know who chose this image. The others said they did not want to identify the person because they felt the case should be handled internally. "It is not a person, but an institution," said one of the staff members.

And about a lack of checks and balances.

"There would never be a mid-level publisher publishing anything in the unattended reporting of anyone," observed one of the Times' reporters.

Some of the people who have published the International Edition feel that they are too stretched – a feeling all too common in newsrooms these days. But heavy workloads can not be an excuse for this type of mistake, other Times reporters said.

"We need many eyes on everything," said one of them.

Sulzberger acknowledged it in his note of Wednesday. "We are in the process of modifying our production processes to ensure proper monitoring and resolve issues related to the international opinion pages that have allowed this error."

In addition, he said: "We have stopped broadcasting all the caricatures subscribed, created by people having no direct link with The Times, which gives us limited editorial control." And the contract with the CartoonArts syndication service was "canceled", he said.

The designer weighs in

The Times editorial board stated that the publisher who had chosen the design "did not recognize his anti-Semitism". The jury implicitly criticized the person, calling the publication of this cartoon "evidence of a deep danger – not only of anti-Semitism, but also of numbness in the end".

And Sulzberger said the newspaper "updates our training on unconscious bias to make sure it includes a direct focus on anti-Semitism."

In response, a staff member stated that he expected "some misgivings" about the training because "he was a production editor".

Meanwhile, the caricaturist at the center of everything said that he had no anti-Semitic intent and only drew the cartoon as a political statement.

In an interview with CNN in Portuguese, Antunes said he was surprised by the outrage. He stated that he had "the greatest respect" for the past of the Jewish people, but that does not mean that they can be "above criticism".

He asserted that the charges of anti-Semitism are a misunderstanding "formulated with the help of the Jewish propaganda machine, which means that whenever there are critics, that's the case. is that there is some anti-Semitic on the other side, and this is not the case ".

He blamed the right-wing personalities: "The Jewish right does not want to be criticized and therefore, when it is criticized, it says" We are a persecuted people, we have suffered a lot … it's the 39; antisemitism. "

Antunes also said he was hurt by the Times' statements. "They should see that there is here a political and non-religious problem," he said, adding that people should not accept the idea that "any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism ".

The Times decided that the drawing was anti-Semitic, long after its publication in the international edition.

On Wednesday, Sulzberger reiterated Sunday's statement that "these images are still dangerous and have multiplied at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in the world".

And, said the publisher, "We are also committed to making changes to prevent such a situation from recurring."