Wall Street Journal Stands Up to Cancel Culture in Epic Fashion

Not long ago, woke staffers at The New York Times banded together on social media to demand a change in the newspaper’s editorial department. Incensed that the paper would run an op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton calling on President Trump to “send in the troops” to defend American cities from violent protesters, black NY Times employees made the absurd claim that their lives were being put in danger by the decision to run the piece. Of course, in an era where the woke are given every demand they throw across the table, Opinion Editor James Bennet quickly apologized and resigned, and the paper promised to do better by their black staffers.

Well, apparently staffers at the Wall Street Journal saw this exercise in mob power and decided to try it for themselves. More than 280 journalists, editors, and other staffers joined forces to send a letter to the paper’s publisher, demanding that he do something about the conservative-leaning editorial section of the Wall Street Journal.

“Opinion’s lack of fact-checking and transparency, and its apparent disregard for evidence, undermine our readers’ trust and our ability to gain credibility with sources,” they wrote.

They were particularly incensed by a recent column by Heather Mac Donald which was carefully sourced to debunk “The Myth of Systemic Police Racism.”

“It selectively presented facts and drew an erroneous conclusion from the underlying data,” they wrote, quite wrongly. “Employees of color publicly spoke out about the pain this Opinion piece caused them during company-held discussions surrounding diversity initiatives. If this company is serious about better supporting its employees of color, at a bare minimum it should raise Opinion’s standards so that misinformation about racism isn’t published.”

“Misinformation,” in this case, meaning “content that corrects the wildly-inaccurate leftist narrative about police shootings.”

Can’t have that.

Well, if this were The New York Times, we would see an immediate apology from the Editorial Board followed by resignations, dismissals, and a new mission statement dedicating the paper to Black Lives Matter.

But instead, we got this refreshing reply:

It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution. But we are not the New York Times. Most Journal reporters attempt to cover the news fairly and down the middle, and our opinion pages offer an alternative to the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media.

As long as our proprietors allow us the privilege to do so, the opinion pages will continue to publish contributors who speak their minds within the tradition of vigorous, reasoned discourse. And these columns will continue to promote the principles of free people and free markets, which are more important than ever in what is a culture of growing progressive conformity and intolerance.

Man, that feels good.

If anyone else in journalism, the media, or academia is looking for a blueprint on how to build a sturdy backbone against the ever-growing woke mob, start with the Wall Street Journal. They’re doing it right.