The New York Times has appeased irate leftists in its coverage of President Trump's comments about the Ohio and Texas shootings by changing its headline.
The original "Trump urges unity vs. racism" became the much more negative "Assailing hate but not guns."
Twitter news aggregator Twitchy explained: "The New York Times originally wrote a headline for Tuesday's front page that read, 'Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism.' Because you know, that's what he actually did and that would be reporting the news BUUUUUUUT our delicate, good-natured, unbiased friends on the Left just couldn't deal with it"
One critic, who complained a "mainstream institution" was aiding "white supremacy," was U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Ocasio-Cortez accuses the leftist New York Times of promoting white supremacy pic.twitter.com/kisflqjUWM
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) August 6, 2019
Fox News commented that the original headline simply was the newspaper summarizing Trump's comments, "in which he denounced hate and white supremacy."
But Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York wrote on Twitter, "That's not what happened."
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., warned the newspaper, "Lives literally depend on you doing better, NYT. Please do."
That’s not what happened. https://t.co/m6eIZOARcZ
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) August 6, 2019
Lives literally depend on you doing better, NYT. Please do. https://t.co/L4CpCb8zLi
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) August 6, 2019
In response to the complaints, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said in a statement that the original headline was problematic.
"The original headline was flawed and was changed for all editions of the paper following the first edition," she said.
Twitchy noted the first headline became a problem for liberals.
"They threw a fit. An embarrassing one, even for them. And NYT caved."
Robby Starbuck explained on Twitter: "Here's a tremendous example of why the public doesn't trust the media @nytimes Print Editor put out their 1st edition featuring a truthful headline … Democrats complain as it isn't cohesive to their narrative … NYTimes buckles and frames it negatively."
Another, Ibn Salami, wrote: "There is certainly cowardice in the mainstream media, but ironically, it was clearly displayed by the NYT changing its headline to pacify the far left. I thought I'd seen it all, but that was 5 minutes ago."