The Nation ’s Eric Alterman doesn’t mind that a few weeks ago, The New York Times added another conservative op-ed columnist. He just wishes it hadn’t been the “awful” Bret Stephens, who used to write for “the rubes who believe what they read in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal” but now is tasked with impressing the “smarter and more sophisticated” readership of the Times.

In a Thursday piece, Alterman, the author of What Liberal Media?, declared that “the problem isn’t with Stephens’s politics; the [Times’] own Ross Douthat is one of the most interesting and original columnists in the American press today. That’s because Douthat, a Catholic conservative, openly wrestles with his own preconceived notions as they collide with reality [and] contribute[s] a fresh perspective that challenges Times readers to think anew. Stephens, by contrast, is an ideological hack. True, he doesn’t like Donald Trump, but he made his name at the Journal -- and, disturbingly, won a Pulitzer Prize -- as a climate-change denier and an incendiary Islamophobe.”

As Alterman sees it, the Stephens hire is one example among many of the media’s misguided recent outreach to conservatives (bolding added):