A. M. Rosenthal - Editorial Policy and Political Views

Editorial Policy and Political Views

Columnist Wesley Pruden said this about Rosenthal's editorial policy:

Like all good editors, Abe was both loved and loathed, the former by those who met his standards, the latter mostly by those who couldn't keep the pace he set as City Editor, Managing Editor and finally Executive Editor. He brooked no challenges to his authority. He once told a reporter who demanded to exercise his rights by marching in a street demonstration he was assigned to cover: "OK, the rule is, you can an elephant if you want to, but if you do you can't cover the circus." We call that "the Rosenthal rule."

Writer Mark Hertsgaard cited the Times as having the Iran Contra story a year before it broke (in November 1986) but wrote that Rosenthal killed the story because of his support for Ronald Reagan.

Rosenthal supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and openly suggested that the U.S. should give Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan an ultimatum that orders these countries to deliver documents and information related to weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations. Otherwise, "in the three days the terrorists were considering the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries would be urged 24 hours a day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major cities, because they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth day."

Rosenthal was reportedly homophobic, with his views supposedly affecting how the New York Times covered issues regarding gay people (such as AIDS). According to former New York Times journalist Charles Kaiser, "Everyone below Rosenthal (at the New York Times) spent all of their time trying to figure out what to do to cater to his prejudices. One of these widely perceived prejudices was Abe’s homophobia. So editors throughout the paper would keep stories concerning gays out of the paper."

Although Rosenthal was known as a Times correspondent in Poland, India, and Japan, the "On My Mind" column which he wrote for the Op-Ed page after stepping down as executive editor, was often not well received. According to Spy magazine, Times staffers privately retitled the column "I, Rosenthal" because of its author's frequent references to himself therein. Partly for this reason, Spy frequently used the locution "Abe 'I'm Writing as Bad as I Can' Rosenthal".