Top NYT Editor Confesses: We Don’t Understand Religion At All

Author: Kresta in the Afternoon Published on: December 13, 2016 Published in: Media & Entertainment

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In an interview with WNYC’s “Fresh Air” The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet admits his newspaper knows nothing about religion or the role it plays in people’s lives.

I want to make sure that we are much more creative about beats out in the country so that we understand that anger and disconnectedness that people feel. And I think I use religion as an example because I was raised Catholic in New Orleans. I think that the New York-based and Washington-based too probably, media powerhouses don’t quite get religion. We have a fabulous religion writer, but she’s all alone. We don’t get religion. We don’t get the role of religion in people’s lives. And I think we can do much, much better. And I think there are things that we can be more creative about to understand the country.

This admission will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever attended a church service once in his or her life and read basically anything the NYT has published about religion. The newspaper has a long-running history of really bad screw-ups. For example, the newspaper of record apparently thought Christians think Christ’s body is still buried.