Edit: I previously included a paragraph here pointing to this issue being brought up even though it's one among many as evidence for race being a top issue. But reading some past comment of yours, you seem more reasonable than I expected, on that issue and in general.
Our disagreement may just be smaller than it appears, or concern "the media" more than the issue of race. If one were to stipulate that BLM was a major story, and maybe even that some of the President-unelect's words and deeds can be interpreted as not entirely lacking a resemblance with something that may, in a certain light, be considered to possibly fall under the umbrella of "being a racist", or even just that he was frequently misinterpreted in such a way by a bit more than half of the population... then race is, de facto, a major issue. Add to that some coverage that's been criticised as tone-deaf, and my starting point of considering the Times to not be the worst, and I think there's a good-faith interpretation of Banquet's intentions.
If, instead, you believe journalism in general, and the Times specifically, have been circling the drain for decades, it may sound different.
The 1619 Project, which the Times presented as its flagship project last year (and which Baquet discusses in the transcript), is a case in point. The really wild historical claims they made, and then the way they dismissed a pretty impressive group of historians (Gordon Wood, James McPherso, Sean Wilentz ... these are really major figures in the historical profession) who asked for corrections, while at the same time hiding the fact that their own fact checker had asked for the very same correction, and finally the way the lead author of the project attacked the historians on social media - the whole thing was really shocking. That's not how the NY Times is supposed to behave. To me, it signaled that they really didn't care about accuracy - this was their big statement, it was selling well, and they weren't going to let a few historians spoil it for them.
> And I do think that race and understanding of race should be a part of how we cover the American story. Sometimes news organizations sort of forget that in the moment. But of course it should be. I mean, one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that. Race in the next year—and I think this is, to be frank, what I would hope you come away from this discussion with—race in the next year is going to be a huge part of the American story. And I mean, race in terms of not only African Americans and their relationship with Donald Trump, but Latinos and immigration. And I think that one of the things I would love to come out of this with is for people to feel very comfortable coming to me and saying, here’s how I would like you to consider telling that story.
Anyone who's read the NY Times regularly over the years has noticed this shift. Zach Goldberg has put numbers to the phenomenon,[1] but the trends are so large that you don't need a detailed statistical analysis to notice them, as a casual reader of the newspaper.
1. https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888?s=20