Ex-NY Times columnist Paul Krugman said editors made my life hell: Exerting a heavy hand

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and longtime left-leaning New York Times columnist, left the Gray Lady last month after more than two decades, accusing editors of effectively censoring his opinion pieces, canceling his beloved newsletter and having “made my life hell.”An embittered Krugman, who was heavily criticized for touting President Joe Biden’s economic policies despite rampant inflation, complained that Times editors were “exerting a very heavy hand on what went out under my name.”Krugman told Columbia Journalism Review that he “approached Mondays and Thursdays (when his columns appeared) with dread” and that he “often spent the afternoon in rage” after publication.Krugman, who has gone on to launch his own independent newsletter on the Substack platform, pointed the finger at Patrick Healy, who was his deputy opinion editor.“Patrick often — not always — rewrote crucial passages,” Krugman told CJR last week.“I would then do a rewrite of his rewrite to restore the original sense, and felt that I was putting more work — certainly more emotional energy — into repairing the damage from his editing than I put into writing the original draft.”Krugman conceded that while “nothing was published without my approval,” he grew exasperated from the “back-and-forth” which “to my eye, both made my life hell and left the columns flat and colorless.”The columnist said that Times opinion editors weren’t as lenient as they once were.“I’ve always been very, very lightly edited on the column,” Krugman told CJR.“And that stopped being the case.”Krugman said that “the editing became extremely intrusive.”“It was very much toning down of my voice, toning down of the feel, and a lot of pressure for what I considered false equivalence.”He accused Healy and his superiors of trying “to dictate the subject.”The final straw for Krugman was when he was informed by Healy this past September that his worklo...