Overview
- On Wednesday, Executive Editor Joe Kahn told a podcast that the newsroom “wouldn’t have” run Nicholas Kristof’s May opinion column and emphasized that the piece “wasn’t edited by the newsroom.”
- Kristof’s May 11 column alleged that Israeli security forces used dogs and other methods to rape or sexually abuse Palestinian detainees, a claim that drew intense attention when first published.
- Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury and a New York Times spokesperson have defended the column, saying it underwent vetting by Opinion’s fact-checkers and legal teams and denying calls for a retraction.
- The column prompted sharp pushback from Israeli officials who called it fabricated, a legal threat from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a formal rebuke from major American Jewish organizations.
- Kahn’s comments underline a deeper institutional question about the boundary between the Times’ Opinion pages and its newsroom and could affect the paper’s credibility and how it handles future sensitive allegations.