NYT editor described columnists as ““people who are paid to have very, very strong convictions, and to believe that they’re right.” — Andrew Gelman

Fact-check opinion pieces? No time, no resources, no problem.

And this is the US "paper of record"?

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
NYT editor described columnists as ““people who are paid to have very, very strong convictions, and to believe that they’re right.”
Andrew Gelman | Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center, Columbia University