(JTA) — The publisher of the New York Times sent a personal letter on Friday to subscribers who canceled over the newspaper’s hiring of Jewish conservative columnist Bret Stephens, who served as editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post from 2002 to 2004. A New York Times spokesman told Politico that fewer than 6 percent of subscribers who canceled since Stephens was hired in April cited him as the reason for the cancellation.
Sulzberger said in his letter to subscribers that the newsroom functions separately from the opinion department where Stephens works and that his columns will not inform the newsroom. “This journalism is unrivaled in its sophistication and imagination,” he wrote. “The support of our subscribers is what allows us to pursue such ambitious stories all over the globe.
“Meanwhile, The Times’ Opinion pages remain an independent and unblinking forum for debate from a wide range of viewpoints among open-minded, informed writers and readers. I don’t think, in these polarizing and partisan times, there’s anything quite like it in American journalism.”