Latest news with #collegeapplication
Fox News
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
NY Times grapples with liberal outrage over its Mamdani college application report
The New York Times was forced to spend the Fourth of July holiday defending an unflattering report about Zohran Mamdani against the outrage of its liberal readers. The Times reported Thursday that the socialist New York City mayoral candidate, who shocked the nation by clinching the Democratic nomination late last month, checked off that he was both "Asian" and "Black or African American" on his 2009 college application to Columbia University. Mamdani is of Indian descent and was born in Uganda. "Most college applications don't have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background," Mamdani told the Times. The revelation of Mamdani's college application came from hacked Columbia University documents that were shared with the Times. The backlash from the left against the Times was swift, blasting the paper for going out of its way to make Mamdani's college application a story and for relying on a source only identified by an anonymous social media username, whom the Times described as "an academic who opposes affirmative action." "Scoop of the century here that a man from Africa with South Asian heritage said so on his college application. They put 3 authors on the byline for this trash fed to them by a eugenicist," reacted "Breaking Points" co-host Krystal Ball. Former CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien called the report "pathetic," adding, "Also good indication that the @nytimes needs to hire more multi-racial people so maybe this stuff will make sense to you guys." There has also been internal strife at the Gray Lady. "People are really upset," one Times journalist told Semafor. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie lashed out at the report, writing on the liberal-centric platform Bluesky, "I think you should tell readers if your source is a nazi." Bouie even attacked contributing Times reporter Benjamin Ryan, who had the lead byline on the Mamdani report, suggesting Ryan has "little to no actual brain activity" and that it's "no surprise that one of the biggest dumbasses in journalism is involved in this." Bouie later took down the posts, saying they "violated Times social media standards." Meanwhile, Times columnist Lydia Polgreen sympathized with Mamdani, writing on X, "I can see why a political young man like Zohran might fill out his college application the way he did. Because if you are like me, you struggle to be known in this country. Our visual sorting is so simplistic and quite brutal." The controversy mounted so much so that Patrick Healy, the paper's assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust, issued a lengthy July 4 statement responding to the "reader feedback." "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," Healy wrote Friday. "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." Healy went on to defend running with the hacked material while keeping the source anonymous, adding, "We heard from readers who wanted more detail about this initial source. That's fair feedback. We printed his online alias so readers could learn more about the person. The purpose of this story was to help illuminate the thinking and background of a major mayoral candidate." However, liberals on X continued hammering the Times. "The @nytimes continues its self-invalidation tour…" former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "How many Ivy League degrees does it take for you to figure out Uganda is in Africa?" "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," wrote ex-MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. "Then again, if you don't realize NYT is perceived as actively campaigning against Mamdani, you're all lost anyway." Meanwhile, conservative critics accused Healy of "groveling" and offering an apology-like statement. "Stop apologizing for saying something critical of a Democrat," top Trump ally Richard Grenell reacted to Healy. "Your problem is that you have thin-skin and too many lefty readers. You aren't an outlet for everyone - you are an outlet for just the left." It was also revealed Sunday by Times insiders that the paper rushed its Mamdani report to avoid getting scooped by conservative activist Christopher Rufo. Rufo offered his "kudos" to the Times on X. "We publish stories once newsworthy information is confirmed and our reporters and editors have completed their work," a spokesperson for The New York Times spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "That was the case with this story; we went to Mr. Mamdani, he confirmed our information as true, and our colleagues had done thorough reporting. We don't hit publish because others may be working on a story." The New York Times is no stranger to the left's viral outrage machine, which erupted in 2020 over the now-infamous "Send in the Troops" op-ed penned by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., in response to the George Floyd riots. The op-ed sparked intense uproar among its staffers and resulted in multiple personnel changes and a giant mea culpa from the paper. Bari Weiss, who resigned from The Times in protest and has since founded The Free Press, penned in her exit letter that "Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor." "As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative," Weiss wrote.
The Independent
07-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Anti-woke activist applauds his ‘friends' at the New York Times for Zohran Mamdani college application ‘scoop'
Right-wing activist and self-styled 'independent journalist' Christopher Rufo lauded his 'friends at the New York Times ' this week after it was reported that the Gray Lady rushed to publish a controversial story about how Zohran Mamdani filled out his college application because it didn't want to get 'scooped' by Rufo. Just before the July 4th holiday weekend, the Times sparked outcry when the paper dropped a piece about the New York City mayoral candidate having identified himself on a 2009 application to Columbia University as both 'Asian' and 'Black or African American.' Mamdani is of Indian descent and was born in Uganda. The 33-year-old state lawmaker told the Times that while he doesn't consider himself Black, he does see himself as 'an American who was born in Africa.' He also explained that, as a 17-year-old, he was attempting to represent his complex ethnic and racial background with the limited options provided on the form. 'Most college applications don't have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background,' Mamdani said, adding that he also wrote on the application that he was born in Uganda. 'Even though these boxes are constraining, I wanted my college application to reflect who I was.' While criticism has focused on the newsworthiness of the piece in general, with intense debate centered on the Times' framing of how Mamdani self-identified in high school as a scandal, much of the outrage has also concentrated on the main source of the story. As initially published, the Times article noted that the story revolved around documents that had been hacked from Columbia's computer systems and provided to the paper by an 'intermediary' known as Crémieux, whom they merely identified as 'an academic and an opponent of affirmative action.' Journalists and researchers of right-wing extremism, however, quickly pointed out that Crémieux is the social media pseudonym of Jordan Lasker, a purveyor of white supremacist and eugenicist views whose public identity has been known for months. Amid the growing outcry, the paper would later update its article to indicate that Crémieux 'writes often about IQ and race' while editor Patrick Healy publicly defended the decision to publish the story and grant the source anonymity. 'What matters most here is whether the information was true and factual—it was, confirmed by Mr. Mamdani; that it was independently confirmed; and that it is relevant to the public,' Healy told the Columbia Journalism Review, though he did acknowledge on social media that it was 'fair feedback' for readers to want to know more information about Crémieux. On Sunday night, Semafor Media added another wrinkle to the roiling controversy over the Times story when it reported that the paper rushed to publish the story on Thursday afternoon over concerns that Rufo would beat them. 'Two people familiar with the reporting process told Semafor that the paper was aware that other journalists were working on the admissions story, including Rufo,' Semafor noted. Rufo has risen to prominence in recent years as a crusader against critical race theory, DEI policies, and 'woke' ideology. Semafor pointed out that Rufo confirmed that he had been reporting out the story when the Times article dropped on Thursday, adding that he would follow up with additional details over the coming days on his Substack. Meanwhile, in an apparent effort to further tweak progressives and spark additional backlash against the paper over the Mamdani story, Rufo applauded the Times for its report and suggested they were on the same page. 'Bummer to get scooped, but kudos to my friends at the New York Times for being first to publish the story,' the conservative provocateur tweeted on Sunday evening. A Times spokesperson declined to comment to Semafor on whether Rufo's reporting prompted the paper to race ahead with its story, instead pointing to Healy's statement to CJR explaining his reasoning for publishing the piece. Among journalists and writers at the Times, opinions on the story have been divided, reigniting long-standing tensions between left-leaning staffers and editorial leaders. Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, for instance, has deleted several Bluesky posts in recent days criticizing the paper, including one slamming the paper for not telling 'readers if your source is a nazi,' because he said it violated the Times' social media guidelines. At the same time, senior editors at the paper appeared to be in agreement over the decision to publish the piece, while veteran Times journalists felt that the reaction to the story showed why it was worth pursuing in the first place. 'The fact that this story engendered all the conversation and debate that it has feels like all the evidence you need that this was a legit line of reporting,' a senior reporter told Semafor. As for the revelation that the paper was racing against Rufo to get the story out first, several media critics took the paper to task for seemingly being manipulated by the right-wing media ecosystem. 'Anyway if you banged out this dumb f***ing story while running out the door for the holiday weekend, in league with racist criminals, because you were worried about getting 'scooped' by Chris Rufo, what you're telling the world is that you CONSIDER YOURSELVES TO BE IN THE SAME BUSINESS AS CHRIS RUFO,' Indignity editor Tom Scocca posted on Bluesky. 'Indeed. The correct story is the manipulative stylings of Chris Rufo,' tech columnist Kara Swisher – who once hosted a podcast for the New York Times – reacted to Scocca.
