But now the charge that the New York Times is guilty of the very kind of bias conservatives had been yelling about for years, which was dismissed out of hand by liberal journalists — a charge that the Times blurs the line between hard news and opinion and is hostile to conservatives — now that charge is coming from someone on the inside. And not just any someone — but a major editor formerly employed by the Times.

In a 17,000 word essay in the British magazine the Economist, James Bennet, the Opinion editor at the Times who was forced out in 2020 (essentially given a choice to leave on his own or be fired), says that instead of embracing a variety of views, the Times shuts down views it doesn’t approve of — views, that is, coming from conservatives. The Times, Bennet writes, has “fostered a culture of intolerance and conformity.”

The column — a cover story in the Economist — has received some coverage, but not a lot. I’m not surprised. Journalists like to look down everybody else’s throat and examine their shortcomings but don’t like it when someone — especially someone on the inside — looks down theirs. Trust me, I know of what I speak.

[Bernie wrote the book on media bias — literally — in his seminal “Bias” more than 20 years ago. If you’ve never read it, do so immediately. Bernie has modified his views somewhat in the time since; he argued in “Bias” that the media was simply too deep in the liberal bubble to know better. Lately, though, Bernie has argued that it’s deliberate and malicious, and Bennet seems to agree. (I was honored to write an introduction for a recent edition of “Bias.”) — Ed]