The NYT just issued a correction that warrants correction

On Friday, The New York Times published a story about Hillary Clinton going on Obama’s campaign manager’s podcast and suggesting that Tulsi Gabbard is being groomed by Russians. Tulsi responded aggressively on Twitter, characterizing Hillary as “the Queen of Warmongers.” The ensuing frenzy surrounding the appropriateness of the allegation prompted at least 4 Democratic primary candidates to condemn Hillary’s attack, and even certain CNN pundits are agreeing that it’s a baseless smear.

Yesterday, Tuesday, The New York Times corrected their piece to clarify that they got the story wrong: Hillary said Tulsi is being groomed by Republicans, not Russians. There is currently a twitter thread with 2.5 thousand retweets exposing the NYT’s failure to accurately report the story, condemning the clickbait inspired way Hillary’s words were misappropriated.

There’s one problem: Hillary did not say Tulsi is being groomed by Republicans. Hillary said Tulsi is being groomed by Russians. This can be demonstrated in two ways. The first: Immediately after discussing Tulsi’s situation in the context of a potential third party run, Hillary brings up Jill Stein as someone who is “also” a Russian asset, which implies she was just discussing a Russian asset.

The second: You can listen to what she said, or read this transcription of it:

Well I think there’s gonna be two parts, and I think it’s gonna be the same as 2016. “Don’t vote for the other guy. You don’t like me, don’t vote for the other guy, because the other guy’s gonna do X, Y and Z” or “the other guy did such terrible things, and I’m gonna show you in these, flashing videos that appear and then disappear and then they’re on the dark web and nobody can find them. But you’re gonna see them, and you’re gonna see that person doing these horrible things.” They’re also gonna do third party again, and I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians, they have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, ‘cause she’s also a Russian asset. Yeah, she’s a Russian asset, I mean, totally.

What Hillary is discussing in the first paragraph is the online manipulation campaign by the Russian IRA discussed in the Mueller Report. It is alleged that the Internet Research Agency would push conspiratorial content onto Americans, designed to dissuade them from becoming Hillary voters.

The best argument you can make is that Hillary was referring to Republicans grooming Tulsi because in Hillary’s mind, the Russians and the Republicans are close enough to be indistinguishable, but it is obvious what Hillary was getting at.

One has to wonder what the process in the newsroom these past few days has been like. It took the journalists at the New York Times four days to realize they completely misrepresented what Hillary said, even in the midst of it being a top story? I wonder, is this an internal correction, or did someone get a frustrated email?

It appears two things could be happening here. The first is that the New York Times made either a genuine mistake or a piece of clickbait, realized the piece’s faults, and updated their story. The second, the one I find more likely, is that the New York Times, being part of a corrupted hegemonic media establishment, are being pressed to retcon Hillary’s own statements so she doesn’t have to be culpable for her own McCarthyist smears. Either way, this is an insult to the intelligence of readers of the New York Times.

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