Maybe someone pointed out to them that panicking and changing your entire strategy due to negative reaction to a specific moment of poor performance isn't always the best move.
Shared three different possibilities of what might have happened with a friend who is a former NYT scribe, and he replied "always the best theory" to my third theory: "Though since the child-scribes control the NYT online and it's a quiet weekend in July somebody could've just fucked up."
They're old and infirm, can't make up their minds, don't know where they're going. Makes me think they should drop out of journalism, let someone younger navigate social media.