NY Times addresses backlash over report on NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani's college application

Fox News

2 days ago

The New York Times seems to be in damage control after the paper's story about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani identifying as Asian and African American on his college application upset some of its readers, leading to an editor from the outlet attempting to clear up the controversy on social media on Friday.
The article claimed that Mamdani, when asked his race on his 2009 college application to Columbia University, checked the boxes for "Asian" but also "Black or African American," in their article published on Thursday.
The Times' assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust, Patrick Healy, put out a lengthy statement on X the following day after receiving "reader feedback" on the article.
"Our reporters obtained information about Mr. Mamdani's Columbia college application and went to the Mamdani campaign with it. When we hear anything of news value, we try to confirm it through direct sources. Mr. Mamdani confirmed this information in an interview with The Times," he wrote.
Healy explained that the New York City mayoral candidate felt limited by the options listed in the application's racial identity boxes — and since he was born in Uganda, decided to write in the country on his application.
Mamdani's application was made available to The Times after a cyberattack on Columbia University in late June led to some of the school's sensitive information being exposed to the hackers.
Healy stated that although the outlet received the information after it was stolen in a cyberattack, "The Times does not solely rely on nor make a decision to publish information from such a source," and verified the application with Mamdani himself before publishing the story.
Regarding the feedback, he added, "We believe Mr. Mamdani's thinking and decision-making, laid out in his words, was newsworthy and in line with our mission to help readers better know and understand top candidates for major offices."
Liberal critics, such as Keith Olbermann, lashed out at the Times on X. He stated, "Your absolute abrogation of the NYT standards would in a better era there have led the full range of you in management to resign. Utter failure. Then again, if you don't realize NYT is perceived as actively campaigning against Mamdani, you're all lost anyway."
Another aspect of the article that some readers took issue with was The Times' source, who sent them Mamdani's 2009 college application.
An opinion columnist for the outlet took to the social media platform Bluesky to slam his own publication for the story.
Jamelle Bouie, a columnist for The Times, slung personal insults at the reporters on social media as well.
Responding to a Bluesky post slamming one of the Times reporters, Benjamin Ryan, the columnist had this to say: "Everything I have seen about him screams a guy with little to no actual brain activity."
Shortly after pubically slamming The Times' story and the reporters who worked on it, Bouie deleted the posts and issued a short statement on his Bluesky account.
"I deleted several posts about a Times story because they violated Times social media standards," he said.
The New York Times did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on this matter. Fox News Digital also reached out to Bouie for comment.