Opinion | My Farewell Column

This is my final column for The Times.In the memo I wrote three years ago when applying for this job after 11 years at The Times Book Review, I vowed “to write to Times readers rather than to Twitter or to Slack.” I knew my positions, fundamentally liberal but often at odds with what had become illiberal progressive dogma, would ruffle feathers.But as I explained, “I want to write about that vast center/liberal space and to address what people really think and believe but are often too afraid to say.”I also stipulated that I could do this job only if I quit Twitter, which had by then become a forum that could lead journalists to mistake the loudest voices for the most legitimate or to temper their positions so as to avoid social media blowback.

The list of social media vortexes today includes not only Twitter’s successor, X, but also Bluesky, Threads, Reddit and countless other online forums.I did not want my positions to be unduly guided by what others might think, be they friends or strangers, office colleagues or online trolls, activist organizations or institutional powers.And the lure of affirmation can be just as potent as the fear of attack.I wasn’t looking to be loved or even liked.

I had friends and family for that.I wanted to write what I believed to be the truth, based on facts and guided by fairness, but never driven by fear.That wasn’t because I was insensitive to other people or enjoyed getting death threats but because I believed in the principles Adolph S.

Ochs laid out on assuming control of The Times in 1896: “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved” and to “invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.” Readers’ respect for those values was — and is — more important to me than readers’ agreement with any one of my opinions.I couldn’t follow that approach if I were looking over my shoulder, checking my feed or worrying how anyone would react...