ROGER KIMBALL: New York Times Shows Need for ‘Reality Czar.’

We saw it with the paper’s hysterical coverage of the Covington Catholic High School teens, their reporting about Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers, and last year’s biggest fantasy, the 1619 Project.

At first, the Times said that the 1619 Project was was a “major initiative” to “reframe” the understanding of American history.

America, the authors of the 1619 Project asserted, was founded as a “slavocracy,” the American Revolution was fought principally to preserve the institution of slavery, and 1619, when a ship bearing slaves arrived in Virginia, was “our true founding.”

Virtually every substantive claim in the 1619 Project was refuted by historians. The Times silently altered some of the more egregious errors, but again the damage had been done.

So maybe the Times is right and we do need a “reality czar” and a coordinated task force to police “misinformation.”

But the focus of the efforts should not be on people expressing differing opinions about the integrity of the 2020 election or the best way to respond to the CCP virus.

It should be on the machinations of that vast engine for the production of politicized misinformation, The New York Times.

Or as America’s real Newspaper of Record put it: Ignorant Senator Shares New York Times Article Thinking It’s Real.