In a delicious bit of irony, the New York Times sought to be poignant and powerful , but ended up just making another spectacular error.
America’s “paper of record” — now a fully far-left newspaper after a long run of being mostly fair and balanced — ran a front page on Sunday with no photos and no stories. Instead, there was just a list of 1,000 names of those the paper said died of COVID-19.
“US deaths near 100,000, an incalculable loss,” said the headline. “They were not simply names on a list. They were us,” said the sub-headline.
“As the U.S. approaches a grim milestone in the outbreak, The New York Times gathered names of the dead and memories of their lives from obituaries across the country,” said the lead.
The front page of The New York Times for May 24, 2020 pic.twitter.com/d14JhFp4CP
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 24, 2020
The long list of names included their age and a just a few words about them.
- Angeline Michalopulos, 92, “was never afraid to sing or dance.”
- Lila Fenwick, 87, was “the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Law.”
- Romi Cohn, 91, “saved 56 Jewish families from the Gestapo.”
- April Dunn, 33, was an “advocate for disability rights.”
- Patricia H. Thatcher, 79, “sang in her church choir for 42 years.”
- Fred Gray, 75, “liked his bacon and hash browns crispy.”
- Harley E. Acker, 79, “discovered his true calling when he started driving a school bus.”
- Frank Gabrin, 60, was an “emergency room doctor who died in his husband’s arms.”
- Skylar Herbert, 5, was “Michigan’s youngest victim of the coronavirus pandemic.”
- Philip Kahn, 100, “World War II veteran whose twin died in the Spanish Flu epidemic a century ago.”
The list also included the name of Jordan Driver Haynes, 27, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, calling him a “generous young man with a delightful grin.”
But Haynes, whose name was listed sixth from the top, didn’t die from the virus. He was murdered, according to local reports.
“An autopsy has ruled the death of Jordan Haynes a homicide,” KWWL-TV reported. “His body was found in a vehicle in a wooded area off of I-380 on March 12. Details regarding the homicide aren’t being released.”
CNN reported that The Times will be running a correction and will remove Haynes’ name in later editions, with a rep from the paper telling a network host that the “error has been removed for later editions of the paper. A correction will be running in print.” This was added to the online story: “Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that one of the names listed on The Times’ front page was a homicide death, not a COVID-19 death.”
Some theories immediately popped up on social media.
“Took all of 5 minutes on google to realize that the ‘journalist’ literally just searched obituaries for the keyword Covid-19. Haynes obituary states that his funeral was delayed due to Covid-19. How a professional can make a mistake like this is unreal,” wrote one Twitter user.
“That’s the 6th name!! They only made it to 6 out of 100K alleged deaths before they got caught making them up! This is crazy! They only had to get 1000 out of an alleged 100K. They got 5 in a row. 5,” said another person on Twitter.
“I punched only that name into google because he was so young. And the name was so close to the top of list that I’m sure many people noticed it simultaneously,” wrote another.
Once again the New York Pravda shows is dishonest and biased liberal Journalism
You mean to tell me the list wasn’t absolutely perfect? Curt, please do a follow-up on this crucial development.
the slime is useless. if one looks at the total number of deaths in nyc, la, and chi., a little over 140,000/year. nyc is about 145/day according to 2015 census. the issue is the above listing is not accurate. did the patient who died test positive for the virus-NO. nyc hospitals were told by the cdc and the mayor to tag everybody who died as a virus death.
FAKE JOURNALISM !
The paper of record, a record of crap reporting and lies.
KGB took control of the “news” at NYT 90 years ago. NYT has different owners but the “news” is still run by American hating Russian agents!
@Billy Kahn: They expect Trump and the Republicans to be perfect, so no room for errors…
…unless the want to look like the useless Left-wing rag that they are.
That would be one misidentified person from a list of one-thousand identified individuals, correct?
The Daily Wire’s point doesn’t seem to be that errors sometimes occur, which everyone already knows.
Maybe some thought should be given to what the point they’re making is, and whether or not a reader would have to be a complete idiot to accept that conclusion based on the evidence they’ve presented.
@Greg:
Well… so far. Think there will be more? Perhaps the CDC ruled his murder a covid death.
The Dallas Morning News used to do the same thing, print the names of the war dead on Christmas Eve. They ceased when Obama became President, even though he had more deaths than Bush did. Likewise, no one thought to morbidly and cruelly exploit the names of those that died due to N1H1. Seems this sort of disgrace is a Democrat trademark.
The point made is the the NYT is nothing but propaganda.
@Greg:
The complete idiot, is you. The point is that Dems use any and every “error” to proclaim absolutism upon the land and the ouster of our legal President, Donald Trump.
That standard isn’t being reciprocated, if the NYT can publish false stories from un-vetted claims, then it’s the responsibility of the People to point out every reporting error they make.
Considering there were over 23,000 Covid Deaths in NYC, a paper trying to make a statement struggled to find the names of 1/23rd of those people?
You’ll just run like a coward instead of defending your overrun position, but that’s ok.
The real point is that your party’s rule by induced hysteria and public opinion is at an end.
@Nathan Blue: The point is the Democrats exploit human tragedy at every opportunity. They are utter scum.
@Deplorable Me, #8:
Yeah, that would be one variation on the unstated conclusion that they’re pitching. They accomplished their purpose, which was to plant that idea in their readers’ heads. Consequently, “so far” is about as far as their reporting on the error will ever get. It’s the same technique that’s been used to turn a handful of cases of voter fraud into millions of imaginary instances.
The demonstration of how this sort of manipulative article can work on its target audience is helpful.
@Greg: Perhaps they should just name those murdered by democrat policy of putting covid patients into nursing homes. Or those that got sick on the filthy subway that required no distancing measures, Im sure it will be higher than beach goers or ocean swimmers.
@kitt: They could just rely on honesty, but these are liberals we’re talking about.