It's really not about the word. The word was clearly a smoke screen for the NYT leadership to oust a labor leader. They even claimed they had handled the issue

It's really not about the word. The word was clearly a smoke screen for the NYT leadership to oust a labor leader. They even claimed they had handled the issue internally when it actually happened, and have a history of using the word frequently, when writing about it in the meta sense. By the time the Daily Beast got a hold of it--mind you, a tabloid that no legitimate paper should ever have to work about--it was a 2-year-old, cold story. This is such a clear-cut case of railroading someone that the only reason I can imagine that everyone here is talking about use-vs-mention is because the author took so damn long to get to this point. I guess journalists really do need good copy editors.