Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The New York Times, decided to give science reporter Donald McNeil a second chance despite finding that he’d made offensive (allegedly quite racist) remarks on a trip with schoolchildren. Fair enough — but how does that square with the Times’ crucifixion of ESPN’s Doug Adler a few years back?

Adler’s only “crime” was to describe Venus Williams’ play at the net as “guerrilla” tactics. But, as our own Phil Mushnick has reported repeatedly, a Times critic took it as “gorilla” — and that was enough not only to get ESPN to fire Adler, but to destroy his career...

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