[throw-away_42]

No, he didn't apologize for the dismissal. Parse the sentence. The "this" in "I'm sorry for this" is not for the dismissal, but for the reaction to it:

"I’ve heard the reaction to Dr. Gebru’s departure loud and clear: it seeded doubts and led some in our community to question their place at Google. I want to say how sorry I am for that, and I accept the responsibility of working to restore your trust."

That is the only use of "sorry" or "apology" in the entire memo.

[toast0]

If you wanted to apologize for a wrongful dismissal, you would offer the job back.

[threatofrain]

What does that even mean when leadership is hostile and untrusting to you? IMO it's better for society to provide remedy in terms of opportunity lost than to make people who no longer trust each other work together.

[ardit33]

it is unfortunate, but NYT is starting to read like a tabloid newspaper...

[texasbigdata]

Did we just get older or did it really degrade that much? Same for WSJ in early 2000s and arguably slightly Economist now.

[ashtonkem]

The issue with the WSJ is the editorial board and the obvious mutual contempt between them and the news side. It’s not uncommon for the editorial board to run whackadoodle stuff that ends up being ripped to pieces by the news staff.

NYT in my eyes appears to be of quite low quality, but I don’t have enough history with them to figure out if this is a new trend or not.

[panarky]

Do you have some links to what you consider to be high quality journalism?

[monoideism]

Here's a pretty good one from NBC news: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EYjG4uequWQ

Just facts, no unnecessary ideology or opinions. Lets the viewer decide.

Now, this isn't always the case with NBC News, but it often is.

Most of 60 Minutes is another example of high quality journalism.

[ashtonkem]

Alas, no. I typically cross compare against multiple publications, along with the knowledge of what the short-comings and biases of each source might be.

[raziel2701]

This focuses on finance and economics so maybe not what you're looking for: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/

[monoideism]

It really degraded that much. It's always been of the left, but used to be fairly even handed and not as openly ideological.

I know what happened - if you've followed what's happening in our universities the past decade, that mostly explains it (see cases like Weinstein at Evergreen, and Christakis at Yale).

Those students have graduated and are influencing the newsroom at NYT and elsewhere.

[thinkingemote]

I put the spotlight on Twitter, it's a source of the news, contains reaction to the news, and it's populated by the same culture as the journalists.

So it's a quick and easy way to write stories to a guaranteed audience.

Of course the decline of print newspapers and online advertising etc is at root.

[monoideism]

I agree Twitter has had an outsized impact, and amplifies all these issues.

But the root cause is an identity/race-centered ideology that has taken root in our "elite" universities.

[boardwaalk]

This might not be that objective, but it feels worse than if he had said nothing at all.

I bet the lawyers checked this memo over twice. Must stay 100 yds away from any admission of wrong-doing.

[worker767424]

Even from a PR standpoint, he should have said nothing. Covid is raging, Facebook is getting sued, a bunch of people will be off of work for a few weeks not thinking about Google... Just let it blow over.