The editor of The New York Times opinion section, James Bennet, and the top editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Stan Wischnowski, faced crises in their newsrooms over an op-ed and an offensive headline, respectively, last week. Over the weekend, both men resigned.

As we wrote, staff at the Inquirer, particularly journalists of color, said they were “tired of shouldering the burden of dragging this 200-year-old institution kicking and screaming into a more equitable age” after the paper ran a front-page article under the headline “Buildings matter, too.” The Inquirer issued an apology and steps it would take to prevent lapses from happening again, but Wischnowski resigned on Saturday afternoon and his last day will be June 12. (No successor has yet been named.)

At the Times, Bennet’s resignation followed an uproar over an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton that called for an “overwhelming” show of military force to stop civil unrest.

The Times’ own staff participated in an unprecedented protest over the Cotton op-ed, publicly stating that the piece put black colleagues in danger and demanding corrections where the op-ed contradicted the Times’ own reporting and misquoted the U.S. Constitution. (The Times has appended a 328-word “Editor’s Note” to the column.)

Publisher A. G. Sulzberger, who had initially defended the decision to publish the op-ed, told Times media reporter Marc Tracy that he and Bennet both “concluded that James would not be able to lead the team through the next leg of change that is required.”

Sulzberger also noted in a memo to staff that the “significant breakdown in our editing processes” that led to the Cotton op-ed was “not the first we’ve experienced in recent years.” The Times had to issue an apology for an anti-Semitic cartoon last year and faces a defamation lawsuit from Sarah Palin about a passage that Bennet inserted into a 2017 editorial, and has issued corrections and editor’s notes over fallout from columns by Bret Stephens, a conservative columnist hired by Bennet. (A correction last year, for instance, began: “An earlier version of this Bret Stephens column quoted statistics from a 2005 paper that advanced a genetic hypothesis for the basis of intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews. After publication Mr. Stephens and his editors learned that one of the paper’s authors, who died in 2016, promoted racist views.”)

A lot of (digital) ink was spilled over the shakeups, especially the Times’ decision to cut ties with Bennet, who was seen as a possible successor to executive editor Dean Baquet.

We’ve been asking what the role of journalists should be during this polarized and dangerous time. @Sulliview⁩ challenges us to reframe coverage with this question at the forefront: What journalism best serves the real interests of American citizens? https://t.co/xC2g75R8iG

— Michelle Ye Hee Lee (@myhlee) June 7, 2020

“But the shift in mainstream American media — driven by a journalism that is more personal, and reporters more willing to speak what they see as the truth without worrying about alienating conservatives — now feels irreversible.”https://t.co/IebIZ4QFEG

— Shani Olisa Hilton (@shani_o) June 8, 2020

As a Times reporter said to me earlier today: “The sharpest criticism internally isn’t just that Bennet failed as head of op-ed, because you can forgive failure. It’s that Cotton trolled him and he still doesn’t know that.” https://t.co/E9XV5t65cT

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 7, 2020

😂 https://t.co/dTdL1pdY4l

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) June 5, 2020

Quite a piece from @jayrosen_nyu on Bennet’s exit and news orgs clinging to the notion of "debate club democracy" in the Trump era https://t.co/kaLl9ovc3p pic.twitter.com/Uo5yZZXQEV

— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) June 8, 2020

Last night, James Bennet quit as NYT opinion editor. It comes during a transformative moment—both for American society and the journalists covering it. For @CJR today, I tackle Bennet's tenure as a symptom of a broader broken philosophy we need to fix:https://t.co/IBHKZ5YMKS pic.twitter.com/ktAs8C88LH

— Jon Allsop (@Jon_Allsop) June 8, 2020

James Bennet has resigned as editorial page editor of the NYT. I will always remember him as the editor who gave Ta-Nehisi Coates the space to write the groundbreaking Case for Reparations. https://t.co/vcR8HKMd58 when few would entertain the idea. That's the James Bennet I know.

— Farah Stockman (@fstockman) June 7, 2020

I appreciate the NYT listening to its employees, especially people of color, & suggesting the work culture will change. In that spirit, let me tell how many live in fear of the "Bret Stephens Policy." So many have been contacted by editors because Brett has whined or complained.

— Wajahat "Social Distance Yourself" Ali (@WajahatAli) June 5, 2020

Let’s be clear. 1 person stepping down does not bring cultural competency, immediate structural change or a complete shift in how a newsroom focuses its efforts on engaging & centering marginalized communities. The entire shift is a process. Diversify the board, the masthead too.

— TauhidChappell (@TauhidChappell) June 6, 2020

What’s next for the Times’ editorial section? With Bennet gone and opinion editor Jim Dao, who said he oversaw the acceptance and review of Cotton’s op-ed, stepping away from the opinion section, Kathleen Kingsbury was tapped to lead the editorial page, at least through the November election.

Back in 2017, when she was the managing editor for digital at The Boston Globe, we published Kingsbury’s account of the traditional wall between The Boston Globe’s newsroom and opinion section coming down for stark, furious coverage of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.

You’re taught in Journalism 101 some fundamental tenets: Be accurate; be fair; don’t make yourself the story. By these measures, maybe Make It Stop had crossed some lines, had gone too far. Maybe.

But there are other responsibilities that we as journalists hold dear: Be a voice for the voiceless. Tell essential truths. Hold the powerful accountable.

Marty Kaiser, the former editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, often talks about how, at the end of the day, even journalism organizations must have thresholds to allow for moral outrage. For the Boston Globe, that threshold was a group of young people at a nightclub, enjoying themselves, being mowed down in cold blood.

We cannot shrug our obligation to call out these atrocities as ones our community and our news organizations will not abide.