> It is now normal for editors at legacy publications to capitulate to outrage not only from their readers, but from their own staff. That’s what’s so shocking about this censorious development in American journalism. It’s not that online activists would try to use their power to enforce their views. It’s that older journalists — people who should, who do, know better — now surrender to the pressure.
So, to answer the question, what broke the NYT is their unwillingness to conduct themselves according to historic journalistic principles -- principles which support freedom of speech and which resist being openly partisan in non-editorial content.