The New York Times’ news operation is in “semi-open revolt” against the editorial page, Ken Kurson writes. One front in the battle? The word “should.” One source tells Kurson Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal believes that word “belongs to him and his people.”
Another reporter told a story in which he had a “scared-y cat editor who had been so frightened by the vitriol that Andy spews around the newsroom about the word ‘should’ that [the editor] literally took it out of my copy every time I used the word when it was applied to an entity or a government institution, as opposed to something an individual should do. She literally just removed it so I didn’t have an opportunity to get into it with them, because she just wouldn’t allow it in my copy.”
Yet another reporter described the exact same obsession with “should” by saying of Mr. Rosenthal, “You know, I think he literally had a Google alert for the word ‘should’ and, like, goes reading through the entire newspaper for it, and that’s what he does all day instead of improving his section.”
