The New York Times Opinion section is negotiating the exit of columnist Pamela Paul, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Her impending departure is part of a handful of job cuts being made at the section. Last month, Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who had been a part of Opinion since 2000, announced to much fanfare that he was leaving. Paul was made an Opinion columnist in 2022 after nearly a decade running the Book Review.
Her ouster is sure to raise eyebrows both within and outside the Times. The Opinion section has been the site of the paper’s fiercest culture war battles in recent years, most famously leading to the firing of editor James Bennet in 2020 over an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton calling for the deployment of troops during the George Floyd protests. Since then, under Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, management at the Times has labored mightily to show that it is open to a diversity of thought, an effort that appeared to be spearheaded by Paul, who has taken on challenging, contentious topics such as gender-affirming youth care.
Paul is admired by some of her colleagues for her willingness to buck liberal-left conventional wisdom. She has written a defense of J.K. Rowling and scrutinized the MeToo movement for overreach, while a recent column criticized the American Historical Society’s vote to condemn the ongoing “scholasticide” in Gaza. But others have said she does little more than produce rage bait, with what one Times staffer referred to as “intellectually lazy” positions. “It is a rarity inside the Times for someone to manage to make enemies on every desk they touch; Pamela is indeed a rarity,” one newsroom employee said. “She should have spent time making allies if she was going to be as divisive a figure as she was internally. But she didn’t put the time in there, or at least did not have the interest.”
I’m told, however, that Opinion’s decision to part ways with her is not because of her ideological positions. Kingsbury said, “We don’t discuss personnel matters, but any insinuation I make staffing or editorial decisions based solely on political viewpoints is false.”
The moves at Opinion are part of a broader shake-up under Kingsbury, who last year brought on Matthew Rose, a former top editor at the Wall Street Journal, as editorial director. Last August, Kingsbury said that the Times editorial board would no longer make endorsements in New York elections, a change that many insiders see as the beginning of a move away from political endorsements altogether.
