NYT: Whoopsie! I Guess We Shouldn't Have Suggested That Nikki Haley Was Responsible for a $50,000 Expenditure for Curtains That Was Actually Made During the Obama Administration

The New York Times ran an article decrying the wasteful expenditure on $50,000 for curtains for new ambadassorial office. They placed Nikki Haley's picture at the top of the article. They ran a headline suggesting her direct involvement.

Turns out, the purchase had been made in 2016, under the Obama Administration.

Which the article itself noted -- in the sixth paragraph. But the headline and picture chose to emphasize Nikki Haley's involvement, which was not a fact at all.

Why? For clicks, for Likes, and to attack the opposing political party.

The New York Times adds an "editors note" instead of admitting they straight-up ran #FakeNews as yet another attempt at a partisan hit.

Ed Morrissey is not impressed:

[T]his explanation is at best incomplete, and at worst substantially deceptive. The paper didn’t get new reporting that clarified Haley’s non-role in the spending decision -- all they had to do is read the sixth paragraph of the original version of their own story. The editors want to pass this off a poor choice of emphasis, when the editors had every opportunity to realize the problem before publication. It was right there in the story! Discovering the problem only required reading the article for comprehension. And yet, the editors not only allowed the focus to remain on Haley, the headline writer followed suit and the image was selected to highlight it.

One more point to note, too -- how did the editors reframe the story after the retraction? While the story notes that the apartment and curtain system were chosen by the Obama administration, the piece never gets around to naming the UN ambassador at the time, Samantha Power, not even to note that she would have benefited from it, as they did with Haley. Here was the lead in the original version:

The State Department spent $52,701 last year buying customized and mechanized curtains for the picture windows in Nikki R. Haley's official residence as ambassador to the United Nations, just as the department was undergoing deep budget cuts and had frozen hiring.

And here's the new lead:

The State Department spent $52,701 for customized and mechanized curtains for the picture windows in the new official residence of the ambassador to the United Nations.

So it was news that Haley would benefit from it, but Power wouldn't have at the time the decision was made? Hmmmm.

He links Sexton's post about former Ted Kennedy staffer Chuck Todd's bizarre claim that there is no such thing as media bias.

Enemies of the people. Straight-up enemies of the people.

If you think the truth is vital to the country, then what are calculated, remorseless lies?

BTW, the New York Times is substantially owned by a foreigner (Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire).

Is the New York Times guilty of foreign interference in an American election by deploying #FakeNews?

Hat-tip for that point to Tim Pool, who made the point in discussing Google: Given that Google's corporate owners launder their cash through foreign countries to avoid US taxation, can't it be said that Google's #FakeNews and censorship constitute foreign interference with US elections?

posted by Ace of Spades at 06:04 PM

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