Admissions of error and wrongdoing by the New York Times are fairly hard to come by. Yet, just such an admission came from the Times’ sports department on Thursday.
Jason Stallman, sports editor at the Times took the hit for an extremely deceptive tweet comparing Patriots attendance from a White House visit under former President Obama, and Wednesday’s visit with President Trump:
Patriots’ turnout for President Obama in 2015 vs. Patriots’ turnout for President Trump today: https://t.co/OxMEOqZonI pic.twitter.com/pLmJWhOw1j
— NYT Sports (@NYTSports) April 19, 2017
The 2015 picture, when the Patriots visited with President Obama, appeared to show a very large group of players and coaches around the then Commander-in-Chief. The 2017 photo with President Trump appeared to show a much, much smaller crowd.
The only problem with this is that the photos completely lacked context, a point made by the Patriots Twitter account, shortly after the New York Times tweet surfaced:
These photos lack context. Facts: In 2015, over 40 football staff were on the stairs. In 2017, they were seated on the South Lawn. https://t.co/iIYtV0hR6Y
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) April 20, 2017
Not to be outdone, President Trump himself took a shot at the Times:
Failing @nytimes, which has been calling me wrong for two years, just got caught in a big lie concerning New England Patriots visit to W.H.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 20, 2017
Stallman took the hit for the bad tweet in an email to the Washington Post:
Bad tweet by me. Terrible tweet. I wish I could say it’s complicated, but no, this one is pretty straightforward: I’m an idiot. It was my idea, it was my execution, it was my blunder. I made a decision in about four minutes that clearly warranted much more time. Once we learned more, we tried to fix everything as much as possible as swiftly as possible and as transparently as possible. Of course, at that point the damage was done. I just needed to own it.
Later on Wednesday night, the Patriots posted two pics of their own, which compared crowd sizes the last time the Patriots won two Super Bowls in three years:
Comparable photos: The last time the #Patriots won two Super Bowls in three years, 36 players visited the White House. Today, we had 34. pic.twitter.com/Aslvf1RaXU
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) April 20, 2017
Full credit should go to Stallman for taking responsibility for the tweet. However, the real credit should got to the Patriots. No one else in the mainstream press called the Times out for their out-of-context, partisan photo comparison. Had the Patriots not said anything, it’s likely no one would have.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn
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