The New York Times has run a series of high-profile editorials calling for the national legalization of marijuana (which was followed by its first ad from a marijuana company). On Tuesday, three editors from the Times’ editorial board did a reddit Ask Me Anything to continue the conversation. Below, 10 things we learned:
To the likely disappointment of Snoop Dogg, who stole the show when he joined the AMA at one point, the Times HQ is still a no-smoking zone. (And just to be clear, the Times editorial board is not advocating for everyone to start smoking pot. Just that it should be decriminalized.)
In the wake of the editorial series, Change.org started a petition to stop the Times Company’s corporate policy of drug testing that’s garnered close to 5,000 signatures. The Times editorial board may not like the policy, but given editorial does not make corporate policy, it has no say in the matter.
While the editorial page is “generally liberal,” the Times newsroom does not have a political bias. Seriously.
In a sure blow to those who believe in their therapeutic value, the Times editorial board has not taken a position on classic psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms and LSD “at the moment.”
Hard-hitting journalism is not dead, all these years after Watergate. See the Times’ coverage of the Rikers Island jail and abuses by the intelligence community. There’s just that little problem of finding the money to pay for all this expensive journalism.
The Times broke with convention with the marijuana series, which contained a mix of signed and, unusually, unsigned editorials, and liked it so much it may experiment more in the future.
Pretty much everyone agreed with the marijuana stance — the editorial board, and publisher Arthur Sulzberger, who has the final say over editorials.
David Firestone’s favorite dipping sauce can be found at Bryant’s barbecue sauce, 18th and Brooklyn St., Kansas City.
Andrew Rosenthal would rather battle a horse-sized duck than 100 duck-sized horses.
No, the Times is not hiring right now. But perhaps surprisingly, it still has allure for young people.
More in Media
CNN builds in-house agent infrastructure as it prepares for AI-driven media trading
In Q3, it plans to test one or two properties to see how they’re interpreted by LLMs, before turning in Q4 to buyer behavior and whether budgets are being allocated toward agent-to-agent trading experiments.
How a ‘TikTok doctorate’ made 26-year-old Griffin Johnson a venture capitalist
Griffin Johnson made it big on TikTok back in 2019, now he runs a VC firm and uses his marketing expertise in the Derby world.
Media Briefing: Publishers debate the value of AI licensing and GEO
Publishers may be gaining visibility in AI search, but execs say the lack of traffic and licensing revenue is raising doubts about the payoff.