The idea that there are two sides to every argument is not controversial. The problem is treating both sides as equally valid, which no journalist should ever do when that's not the truth. No one needs to "hear out" the flat earthers. https://twitter.com/jeffjarvis/status/1351167782998716418

In fact, airing views that we know to be false or dangerous as if they're legitimately the "other side of the argument" commits a major journalistic sin by credentializing them, even if that's not the intention.

Truth can't be sacrificed at the altar of some completely fictional notion of objectivity that's conflated with neutrality. Equally toxic: an idea of intellectual diversity that says all opinions are equal, and airing terrible ones contributes to the rigor of the public discourse

It's also telling what the cluster of "things that can't be said" are when (overwhelmingly) white men argue that they are being censored and there is no "intellectual diversity": long discredited race science, misogynistic views about whether women can compete in STEM professions

Transphobic crap, etc. And it's not that people can't say these things--they do all the time. They just want to be able to say them without blowback, and in some cases, they're angry those views aren't being validated in the mainstream.

One thing he says that I agree with is that newsroom standards should be applied to opinion (in terms of veracity, etc.) But he does this after quoting Bari Weiss, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the worst fact-free offenders at the Times are on the conservative side.

Bret Stephens alone could use an army of fact checkers. And he cites James Bennett's departure as well, which was a case where journalistic standards (i.e., Bennett actually reading the irresponsible column and evaluating it) were not applied.