List of The New York Times controversies

Russian Revolution, 1917–1920 In 1920, Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz investigated the coverage of the Russian Revolution by The New York Times from 1917 to 1920. Their findings, published as "A Test of the News", in a supplement of The New Republic, concluded that The New York Times reporting was biased and inaccurate, adding that the newspaper's news stories were not based on facts but "were determined by the hopes of the men who made up the news organizations." Lippmann and Merz alleged that the newspaper referred to events that had not taken place and atrocities that had not occurred, and that it reported at least 91 times that the Bolshevik regime was on the verge of collapse. "The news about Russia is an example of what people wanted to see, not what happened," Lippmann and Merz wrote. "The main censor and the main propagandist was the hope and fear in the minds of reporters and editors." Coverage of the Holodomor The New York Times was criticized for the work of reporter Walter Duranty, who served as its Moscow bureau chief from 1922 through 1936. Duranty wrote a series of stories in 1931 on the Soviet Union and won a Pulitzer Prize for his work at that time; however, he has been criticized for denying widespread famine, particularly the Holodomor, the Ukrainian famine in the 1930s. In 2003, after the Pulitzer Board began a renewed inquiry, the Times hired Mark von Hagen, professor of Russian history at Columbia University, to review Duranty's work. Von Hagen found Duranty's reports to be unbalanced and uncritical, and that they far too often gave voice to Stalinist propaganda. In comments to the press, he stated, "For the sake of The New York Times' honor, they should take the prize away." Coverage of the Holocaust The Times has been criticized for its coverage of the Holocaust. According to the 2005 book Buried by the Times by Laurel Leff, it buried in the back pages of the paper stories about the genocide of European Jews, and avoided mentions of Jewish victims of persecutions, deportations, and death camps. Between 1939 and 1945, the Times published more than 23,000 front-page stories—half of which were about World War II—and only 26 were about the Holocaust. In the documentary Reporting on The Times: How the paper of record ignored the Holocaust, past editors of the newspaper stated that there was a conscious decision to bury the paper's Holocaust coverage. Various motivations have been attributed to the decision to bury and minimize the Holocaust, all of which are linked to the Times publisher at the time, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who was Jewish. Some claim that Sulzberger feared the Times would be "viewed as 'a special pleader for the Jews'"—at a time when anti-Semitism was relatively common in the United States—if the Holocaust was given more prominent coverage. Others point to Sulzberger's anti-Zionist views as a stronger motive. A Reform Jew and an enthusiastic supporter of the American Council for Judaism, both of which heavily emphasize anti-Zionism, Sulzberger believed European Jews were partially responsible for their own demise in the Holocaust. Not even a personal visit to a concentration camp was enough to shake this conviction. In a 1946 speech, less than one year after his visit to a concentration camp, Sulzberger stated, "'[i]t is my judgment that thousands dead might now be alive' if 'the Zionists' had put 'less emphasis on statehood.'" In another speech that same year, Sulzberger downplayed the plight of displaced Jews, stating "they were 'but a minor percentage of the total of displaced persons' and therefore should not be receiving so much attention." In September 1996, the Times released a statement admitting to "underplaying the Holocaust while it was taking place" and that "[c]lippings from the paper show that the criticism is valid." 1979 sex discrimination settlement In November 1979, a federal court gave approval to a settlement between The New York Times and a group of female Times employees who sued alleging sex discrimination. The settlement agreement was effective for a four-year period beginning in January 1979; under the agreement, the company amended existing equal opportunity targets and paid $350,000 in compensation and attorneys' fees to the plaintiffs, but was not required to "pay new or retroactive salary increases, make immediate promotions, revoke past employment practices or substantially change its present affirmative-action programs." James C. Goodale, the executive vice president of the New York Times Company, said that the settlement "completely vindicates The Times of any charge or hint of unfair employment practices." The prime suspect, Taiwan-born U.S. citizen Wen Ho Lee, had his name leaked to The New York Times by U.S. Energy Department officials. Lee was indicted on 59 counts and jailed in solitary confinement for 278 days until he accepted a plea bargain from the government. The alleged security breach became a catalyst for the creation of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Lee was released after the government failed to prove its case. President Bill Clinton issued a public apology to Dr. Lee over his treatment. Lee filed a lawsuit under the Privacy Act alleging that officials had leaked false and incriminating information to the press before charges were filed. Lee's lawsuit was settled in 2006, just before the U.S. Supreme Court was to decide whether to hear the case. The issues resembled those in the Plame affair criminal investigation, during which The New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent two-and-a-half months in jail rather than reveal her government source. ==Alleged biases==

Corporate-influence concerns In their book Manufacturing Consent (1988), Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky analyze major U.S. media outlets, with an emphasis on The Times. They believe that a bias exists which is neither liberal nor conservative in nature, but aligned towards the interests of corporations, which own most of these media outlets and also provide the majority of their advertising revenue. The authors explain that this bias functions in all sorts of ways: "by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns, by emphasis and framing of issues, by filtering of information, by bounding of debate within certain limits. They determine, they select, they shape, they control, they restrict — in order to serve the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society." Chomsky and Herman also touch on the importance of this perceived bias in The Times:"history is what appears in The New York Times archives; the place where people will go to find out what happened is The New York Times. Therefore it's extremely important if history is going to be shaped in an appropriate way, that certain things appear, certain things not appear, certain questions be asked, other questions be ignored, and that issues be framed in a particular fashion." Fossil fuel advertising An investigation by The Intercept, The Nation, and DeSmog found that The New York Times is one of the leading media outlets that publishes advertising for the fossil fuel industry. Journalists who cover climate change for the Times are concerned that conflicts of interest with the companies and industries that caused climate change and obstructed action will reduce the credibility of their reporting on climate change and cause readers to downplay the climate crisis. A 2002 study published in the journal Journalism examined Middle East coverage of the Second Intifada over a one-month period in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. The study authors said that the Times was "the most slanted in a pro-Israeli direction" with a bias "reflected... in its use of headlines, photographs, graphics, sourcing practices, and lead paragraphs." A Media, War & Conflict study based on a quantitative analysis of the use of active and passive voice and of the sentiment of the language used during the first and second Palestinian intifadas found that the paper's coverage of the events was disproportionately anti-Palestinian and that such bias worsened from the First Intifada to the Second. Gaza war coverage In November 2023, contributor Mona Chalabi criticized the paper for paying less attention to Palestinian deaths than Israeli deaths, and alleged that it treats its Arab staff less well than its Jewish staff, speculating that some of the latter may have gone on free government-funded trips to Israel in their youth through Birthright Israel, which she said should raise questions about their ability to be objective about Israel. Writers and editors have left the newspaper due to its coverage of events in Gaza. Signatories of the Writers Against the War on Gaza letter, an open letter accusing Israel of attempting to "conduct genocide" in the course of the Gaza war, include award-winning journalist Jazmine Hughes, who resigned from her position at The New York Times shortly after signing the letter, as well as Jamie Lauren Keiles, who announced that he would no longer contribute to the Times after the letter was released. The newspaper said that their actions were a "violation of The Times's policy on public protest". Writers Against the War on Gaza organized a parody paper as agitprop, The New York (War) Crimes, discussing alleged unbalanced coverage. Code Pink protested the paper's coverage in April 2025, citing the open letter. On 11 December 2023, a global strike was called in order to apply pressure for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, with activists encouraging participants to refrain from going to work, school, or making any purchases. Supporters of the strike blocked the entrance of The New York Times Building. Photographer Nan Goldin cancelled a project with the Times due to its "complicity with Israel." An April 2024 internal memo by Susan Wessling and Philip Pan reportedly prohibited journalists covering the war from using the words "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" in their reporting. "Screams Without Words" The accuracy of the Times coverage of reported atrocities during the October 7 attacks in a December 2023 investigative piece entitled "Screams Without Words" has been the subject of criticism by The Intercept for inaccuracies and poor fact checking. On 29 April 2024, more than 50 tenured journalism US university professors and scholars called for a thorough external review into the reporting, editorial procedures and overall publication process behind "Screams Without Words". Protest and boycott The New York Times Building has been a site of protest action during the Gaza war and genocide, including a November 2023 sit-in demanding that The Times' editorial board publicly call for a ceasefire and accusing the media company of "complicity in laundering genocide," a February 29, 2024 protest and press conference following the release of The Intercept's critical investigation into the NYT "Screams Without Words" exposé, and an action on July 30, 2025, in which protesters spray-painted "NYT Lies, Gaza dies" on the building's glass facade. In addition, protesters blocked The New York Times' distribution center March 14, 2024 and executive editor Joseph Kahn's residence was splattered with red paint on August 25, 2025. The collective Writers Against the War on Gaza, which publishes the mock publication The New York War Crimes, has been associated with protests against The New York Times. On October 27, 2025, 300 writers—including scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals—pledged to boycott The New York Times and withhold contributions to the paper in protest of what they describe as its complicity in the Gaza genocide, demanding 1) a review of anti-Palestinian bias in the newsroom, 2) a retraction of "Screams Without Words", and 3) a call from the Editorial Board for a US arms embargo on Israel. Among the initial signatories, about 150 had previously contributed to the Times. from the advocacy group StopAntisemitism that Ms. Rachel was being funded by Hamas. Ms. Rachel wrote to The New York Times that "This accusation is not only absurd, it's patently false," and "caring about children in Gaza is a direct continuation of the work I've been doing most of my life. We don't care about only some of our students because of where those students were born, we care about every one of them." A July 1-December 31, 2011, CAMERA study, published in 2011, said the Times ignored or downplayed "the extent of anti-Israel incitement by the Palestinian leadership. While the newspaper published multiple articles faulting Israel for obstructing a two-state solution, it only once focused on Palestinian incitement as a possible impediment to peace." On April 25, 2019, the Times international print edition published a cartoon, drawn by Portuguese cartoonist António Moreira Antunes, featuring U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump was shown wearing a kippah and Netanyahu was displayed as Trump's dog wearing a collar with the Star of David. The Israeli edition of the newspaper was published at the end of Passover. After criticism from public and religious figures, the Times affirmed it used antisemitic tropes. On May 1, 2019, the Times announced that the editor who published the cartoon, whose name has never been released, would be "disciplined." The Times also announced the cancellation of its contract with the syndicate that provided the cartoon, and that the Times would "update its bias training to include a focus on anti-Semitism." On August 22, 2019, a politics desk editor at the Times, Tom Wright-Piersanti, was revealed to have posted several antisemitic tweets while working at another outlet before joining the Times. He had posted several anti-Indian tweets as well. His tweets included phrases such as "Crappy Jew Year", and "Jew police." The Times reconsidered his future, but ultimately decided to continue his employment. On September 23, 2021, an article written by reporter Catie Edmondson stated that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had tearfully changed her vote from "no" to "present" on a vote to fund the Iron Dome because of the pressure exerted on Ocasio-Cortez by "influential lobbyists and rabbis". The claim was criticized on the grounds that discussion of "influential rabbis" echoed antisemitic tropes, with critics asking which rabbis were known to have influence on Ocasio-Cortez; claiming that Edmondson had attributed motives to Ocasio-Cortez without any factual basis; and that one could support the Iron Dome, a defensive installment that protects civilians, if one had been influenced by lobbyists or rabbis. Iran coverage A 2015 study claimed that The New York Times fed into an overarching tendency towards national bias. During the Iranian nuclear crisis, the newspaper minimized the "negative processes" of the United States while overemphasizing similar processes of Iran. This tendency was shared by other papers such as The Guardian, Tehran Times, and the Fars News Agency, while Xinhua News Agency was found to be more neutral while at the same time mimicking the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China. Open letters on transgender coverage The New York Times reporting on transgender issues was criticized by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. In February 2023, nearly 1,000 current and former Times writers and contributors wrote an open letter addressed to Philip B. Corbet, accusing the paper of publishing biased articles against transgender, non⁠-⁠binary, and gender nonconforming people, some of which have been cited in amicus briefs such as one defending Alabama's Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. Contributors alleged that "the Times has in recent years treated gender diversity with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language, while publishing reporting on trans children that omits relevant information about its sources." Tens of thousands of subscribers and readers also signed the letter. Hundreds of high-profile figures, including Roxane Gay, Jenna Wortham, Dave Itzkoff, Ed Yong, Chelsea Manning, Sarah Schulman, Jia Tolentino, Lena Dunham, Kate Zambreno, Gabrielle Union, Judd Apatow, Tommy Dorfman, and Cynthia Nixon, signed the letter. A second letter was released the same day. Within a day the Times issued a response, saying that "Our journalism strives to explore, interrogate and reflect the experiences, ideas and debates in society—to help readers understand them. Our reporting did exactly that and we're proud of it." The next day, the Times published an op-ed piece by Pamela Paul entitled "In defense of J. K. Rowling." The same day, an internal memo was sent by the editors, saying that "Our coverage of transgender issues, including the specific pieces singled out for attack, is important, deeply reported, and sensitively written. We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums." Recounting the letter campaign and other events, in 2025 GLAAD published an overview of what they saw as bias and inaccuracies within The New York Times' coverage of transgender people. They cited a number of events and editorial decisions at the paper, e.g., that:The Times has covered Utah's legislative attacks against the transgender community in more than half a dozen stories, but did not cover the Utah legislature's study finding that transgender health care benefits trans youth. ... The Times obscures sources' identities, leading readers to believe a source is simply an 'everyday person,' when they in fact are working directly with anti-trans activists and extremist organizations. ... Multiple families have come forward to express their regret in speaking with the Times and call out the fact that their personal stories were spun and twisted[.] An Associated Press report claimed that Musk "despised" the Times, causing The New York Times to lose the verification check mark of its Twitter account for several months. In June 2024, the Times reported on a remote Amazon tribe that received access to the internet due to Musk's Starlink satellite service. Global headlines reported that the tribe had become hooked on the internet, with pornography becoming a problem. In response, the Times claimed that the article had been misrepresented. ==2000s==

Anthrax attacks In 2002, The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a series of columns indirectly suggesting that Steven Hatfill, a former U.S. Army germ warfare researcher named as a "person of interest" by the FBI, might be a "likely culprit" in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Hatfill was never charged with any crime. In 2004, Hatfill sued The New York Times and Kristof for libel, claiming defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. After years of proceedings, the case was dismissed in 2007, and the dismissal was upheld on appeal. In 2008, the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which refused to grant certiorari, effectively leaving the dismissal in place. The basis for the dismissal was that Hatfill was a "public figure" and he had not proved malice on the part of The New York Times. Plagiarism by Jayson Blair In 2003, The New York Times admitted that Jayson Blair, one of its reporters, had committed repeated journalistic fraud over a span of several years. Blair immediately resigned following the incident. Questions of affirmative action in journalism were also raised, since Blair is African American. Jonathan Landman, Blair's editor, said he felt that Blair's race played a large part in Blair being promoted in 2001 to a full-time staffer. The paper's top two editors—Howell Raines, the executive editor, and Gerald M. Boyd, the managing editor—resigned their posts following the incident. Iraq War coverage by Judith Miller Nuclear weapons misinformation Judith Miller wrote a series of prominently displayed articles suggesting Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was sourcing materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons. Chief among these was a front-page article reporting Iraq's purchase of aluminum tubes "which American officials believe[d] were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium." According to author Michael Massing, the aluminum tubes—which were mentioned in Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations—became "a key prop in the administration's case for war, and the Times played a critical part in legitimizing it." In 2004, the Times published an editorial admitting that it uncritically propagated the claims of their intelligence sources, and contributed to an overall "pattern of misinformation" related to Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Valerie Plame affair In October 2005, Judith Miller was released from prison after 85 days, when she agreed to testify to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury after receiving a personal waiver, both on the phone and in writing, of her earlier confidential source agreement with Lewis "Scooter" Libby. No other reporter whose testimony had been sought in the case had received such a direct and particularized release. Her incarceration has helped fuel an effort in Congress to enact a federal shield law, comparable to the state shield laws that protect reporters in 31 of the 50 states. After her second appearance before the grand jury, Miller was released from her contempt of court finding. Miller resigned from the paper on November 9, 2005. Delayed publication of 2005 NSA warrantless surveillance story The New York Times learned of the National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless surveillance program as early as autumn 2004, before the 2004 presidential election between George W. Bush and John Kerry. However, the newspaper did not publish reporting on the secret program (obtained by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau) until late December 2005, after more than a year. When it published the article, the newspaper reported that it had delayed publication because the George W. Bush White House had argued that publication "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny." In an interview in 2013, Keller said that the newspaper had decided not to report the piece after being pressured by the Bush administration and being advised not to do so by The New York Times Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman, and that "Three years after 9/11, we, as a country, were still under the influence of that trauma, and we, as a newspaper, were not immune." In 2014, PBS Frontline interviewed Risen and Lichtblau, who said that the newspaper's plan was initially to not publish the story at all, and that "The editors were furious at me" and "thought I was being insubordinate." Risen wrote his book about the mass surveillance revelations after Times declined the piece's publication, and only released it after Risen told them that he would publish the book. Another reporter told NPR that the newspaper "avoided disaster" by ultimately publishing the story. Also in 2014, Edward Snowden cited the delay in the reporting in choosing not to supply The New York Times with his information about global surveillance programs; Snowden chose to go to the Guardian and The Washington Post instead. MoveOn.org ad controversy On September 10, 2007, the Times ran a full-page advertisement for MoveOn.org questioning the integrity of General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, entitled "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" The Times charged MoveOn.org, a liberal activist group, $65,000 for the advertisement, less than the approximately $181,000 basic rate for such an ad. The paper said that its advertising rates varied for many reasons, with ad buyers getting discounts for bulk buys or a "standby" rate, A subsequent full-page ad bought by Republican presidential primary candidate Rudy Giuliani to rebut MoveOn's original ad was purchased at the same standby rate. John McCain-lobbyist article criticism The February 21, 2008 The New York Times published an article on John McCain's alleged relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman and other involvement with special interest groups. The article received widespread criticism among both liberals and conservatives, McCain supporters and non-supporters, and talk radio personalities. Robert S. Bennett, whom McCain had hired to represent him in the matter, defended McCain's character. Bennett, who had been the special investigator during the Keating Five scandal that The Times revisited in the article, said that he fully investigated McCain back then and suggested to the Senate Ethics Committee that they not pursue charges against McCain. "And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest and honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him, and I think for the New York Times to dig this up just shows that Senator McCain's public statement about this is correct. It's a smear job. I'm sorry." Lanny Davis, a former staffer to President Bill Clinton and campaigner for Hillary Clinton, said the article "had no merit." Stating that he did not support McCain's bid for the White House, Davis, who had himself lobbied for the same cause Iseman had lobbied McCain for, said that McCain only wrote a letter to the FCC to ask them to "act soon" and refused to write a letter that supported the sale of the television station the article talked about. Journalistic observers also criticized the article, albeit using milder language. Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, suggested that the article does not make clear the nature of McCain's alleged "inappropriate" behavior: "The phrasing is just too vague." The article was later criticized by the White House and by several news organizations including the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board. Commentator Bill O'Reilly raised the question about why the paper had endorsed McCain on January 25, 2008, for the Republican nomination if they had information that alleged an inappropriate relationship. The Boston Globe, owned by the Times, declined to publish the story, choosing instead to run a version of the same story written by the competing Washington Post staff. That version focused almost exclusively on the pervasive presence of lobbyists in McCain's campaign and did not mention the sexual relationship that the Times article hinted at. In response to the criticism, the Times editor Bill Keller was "surprised by the volume" and "by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision [to publish the article]". The diverse sentiments by the readers were summarized in a separate article by Clark Hoyt, the Times public editor, who concluded: "I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides about whether the boss is getting into the wrong bed." In September 2008, McCain senior aide Steve Schmidt charged: "Whatever The New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day impugns the McCain campaign, attacks Sen. McCain, attacks Gov. Palin. ... Everything that is read in The New York Times that attacks this campaign should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective." In December 2008, Iseman filed a lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging that the paper had defamed her by, in her view, falsely implying that she had an illicit romantic relationship with McCain. In February 2009, the suit "was settled without payment and The Times did not retract the article." Unusually, however, the Times agreed to publish a statement from Iseman's lawyers on the Times website. Clark Hoyt, the public editor of The New York Times described Stanley as "much admired by editors for the intellectual heft of her coverage of television" but "with a history of errors". The New York Times printed a correction: An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite's career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Cronkite's coverage of D-Day. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. "The CBS Evening News" overtook "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents' reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of "The CBS Evening News" in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International. M.I.A. quotes out of context (2009–10) In February 2009, a Village Voice music blogger accused the newspaper of using "chintzy, ad-hominem allegations" in an article on British Tamil music artist M.I.A. concerning her activism against the Sinhala-Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka. M.I.A. criticized the paper in January 2010 after a travel piece rated post-conflict Sri Lanka the "#1 place to go in 2010". In June 2010, The New York Times Magazine published a correction on its cover article of M.I.A., acknowledging that the interview conducted by current W editor and then-Times Magazine contributor Lynn Hirschberg contained a recontextualization of two quotes. In response to the piece, M.I.A. broadcast Hirschberg's phone number and secret audio recordings from the interview via her Twitter and website. ==2010s==

Cleveland rape case The Times faced criticism after a 2011 article by James C. McKinley Jr. entitled "Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town", which profiled the arrests of 18 young men and teenage boys from the community of Cleveland, Texas, for gang-raping an 11-year-old girl four times over the course of a year. The article focused mainly on the reaction of the local community, many of whom were quoted as expressing sympathy for the alleged rapists and laying blame on the victim's family, and was widely criticised for doing little to present an alternative view and instead presenting the support for the alleged rapists at face value, as well as failing to push back on malicious remarks about the victim and her family. McKinley also noted that the victim "dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s", which was criticised for implying that the victim had "provoked" the assault by dressing provocatively. In response to criticism, the Times dispatched a reporter back to Cleveland and published an opinion piece by Arthur Brisbane entitled "Gang Rape Story Lacked Balance" which was heavily critical of McKinley's reporting. Nail salon series (2015) In May 2015, a New York Times exposé by Sarah Maslin Nir on the working conditions of manicurists in New York City and elsewhere and the health hazards to which they are exposed attracted wide attention, resulting in emergency workplace enforcement actions by New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo. In July 2015, the story's claims of widespread illegally low wages were challenged by former New York Times reporter Richard Bernstein, in The New York Review of Books. Bernstein, whose wife owns two nail salons, asserted that such illegally low wages were inconsistent with his personal experience, and were not evidenced by ads in the Chinese-language papers cited by the story. The New York Times editorial staff subsequently answered Bernstein's criticisms with examples of several published ads and stating that his response was industry advocacy. The independent NYT Public Editor also reported that she had previously corresponded with Bernstein and looked into his complaints, and expressed her belief that the story's reporting was sound. In September and October 2015, nail salon owners and workers protested at The New York Times offices several times, in response to the story and the ensuing New York State crackdown. In October, Reason magazine published a three-part re-reporting of the story by Jim Epstein, charging that the series was filled with misquotes and factual errors respecting both its claims of illegally low wages and health hazards. Epstein additionally argued that The New York Times had mistranslated the ads cited in its answer to Bernstein, and that those ads actually validated Bernstein's argument. In November 2015, The New York Times public editor concluded that the exposé's "findings, and the language used to express them, should have been dialed back — in some instances substantially" and recommended that "The Times write further follow-up stories, including some that re-examine its original findings and that take on the criticism from salon owners and others — not defensively but with an open mind." 2016 Democratic primaries Responding to complaints alleging that the paper's news coverage favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, The Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote that "The Times has not ignored Mr. Sanders's campaign, but it hasn't always taken it very seriously. The tone of some stories is regrettably dismissive, even mocking at times. Some of that is focused on the candidate's age, appearance and style, rather than what he has to say." Times senior editor Carolyn Ryan defended both the volume of The New York Times coverage (noting that Sanders had received about the same amount of article coverage as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio) and its tone. Dismissed discrimination lawsuit In April 2016, two black female employees in their sixties filed a federal class-action lawsuit against The New York Times Company executives; they claimed age, gender, and racial discrimination, alleging that the 'Times advertising department favored younger white employees over older black employees in making firing and promotion decisions. The Times said that the suit was "entirely without merit" and was "a series of recycled, scurrilous and unjustified attacks." and the court also later denied class certification as to the age and racial discrimination claims. Sari and Hindutva An article published in 2017 by author Asgar Qadri in the Times (titled "In India, fashion has become a nationalist cause") was criticized by Indian Twitter users and some commentators, such as Barkha Dutt, for suggesting that the sari was co-opted by the Hindutva movement. Critics said that the article was inaccurate and orientalist. Publishing leaked photos from the Manchester bombing On May 24, 2017, The New York Times caused outrage among the British police and government when it published leaked photos showing the scene of the Manchester Arena bombing. Counter terror police chiefs said the leak undermined their investigation and victims' and witnesses' confidence. The New York Times published photos it says were gathered by UK authorities at the scene of the attack, including the remnants of a backpack, nuts and screws, and a device identified as a "possible detonator". Greater Manchester Police were said to be "furious" and said they would stop sharing information with the United States. President Donald Trump the next day in a NATO summit condemned the media leaks, calling it "deeply troubling" and a "grave threat to our national security". The New York Times defended its decision to publish the photos, saying they were "neither graphic nor disrespectful of victims". Caliphate podcast Caliphate, a podcast for The New York Times, has been criticized numerous times after Abu Huzaifa al-Kanadi admitted on the podcast that he "murdered people" while he was fighting for the Islamic State group. Numerous conservatives called for action against him after his statement, including Canadian politician Candice Bergen. She criticized the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau for his not ordering law enforcement against al-Kanadi. Bergen also called for then Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale to reveal whether the government knew where al-Kanadi was, but Goodale stated that it was the "opposition of keeping Canadians safe". Huzaifa also was criticized by television journalist Diana Swain, who said that al-Kanadi may have been "lying" to The New York Times or CBC News. In December 2020 The New York Times admitted that it could not verify the claims made in the podcast. The podcast was later withdrawn from consideration as a Pulitzer finalist. Hiring of Sarah Jeong In August 2018, the Times hired Sarah Jeong to join its editorial board as lead writer on technology, commencing in September. The hiring sparked a strongly negative reaction in conservative media, which highlighted derogatory tweets about white people that Jeong had posted mostly in 2013 and 2014. Critics characterized her tweets as being racist; Jeong said that the posts were "counter-trolling" in reaction to harassment she had experienced, and that she regretted adopting this tactic. Obituaries editor William McDonald defended the newspaper's coverage of controversies under Monson's tenure, highlighting that the article noted Monson's openness to research on church records, expansion of missionaries to include more women, and interdenominational humanitarian efforts. Elimination of copy editors (2018) The New York Times announced plans to eliminate copy editing roles from the production of its daily newspaper and website content in June 2018. Executive Editor Dean Baquet defended the cuts, saying that the Times needed to free up funds to hire more reporters by eliminating editing roles. (The opinion and magazine sections have still retained their copy editors.) The duties of copy editors—checking style, grammar, factual correctness, and tone, as well as writing headlines—were merged into all-purpose editing roles. Editors currently not only edit the content of the stories but also, in many cases, conduct the final read before publication. Many publications, such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, have suggested that the elimination of copy editors has led to more mistakes, such as typos and factual errors, in the paper. The Poynter Institute similarly suggested in a blog post that the elimination of copy editors would decrease internal expertise and hurt the quality of daily news reporting. 1619 Project The 1619 Project, a long-form journalism project re-evaluating slavery and its legacy in the United States by investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, has been criticized by some historians. In December 2019, a group of historians wrote to The New York Times Magazine, expressing concern over what they alleged were inaccuracies and falsehoods fundamental to Hannah-Jones' reporting. The magazine's editor-in-chief, Jake Silverstein, responded to the historians' letter in an editorial, in which he called into question the historical accuracy of some of the letter's claims. In an article in The Atlantic, historian Sean Wilentz responded to Silverstein, writing, "No effort to educate the public in order to advance social justice can afford to dispense with a respect for basic facts" and disputed the accuracy of Silverstein's defense of the project. In September 2020, controversy arose over the Times updating the opening text of the project website to remove the phrase "understanding 1619 as our true founding" without accompanying editorial notes. Critics, including Bret Stephens of the Times, claimed the difference showed that the newspaper was backing away from some of the initiative's more controversial claims. The Times defended its practices and Hannah-Jones emphasized how most of the project's content had remained unchanged—but also admitted that she was "absolutely tortured by" her failure to consult more expert historians before making the sweeping claims that were subsequently removed. ==2020s==

Tom Cotton editorial (2020) During the George Floyd protests in June 2020, the Times published an opinion piece by U.S. Senator Tom Cotton entitled "Send in the Troops", which called for the mobilization of the U.S. military in response to rioting, and for "an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers", and which contained claims about the protests that the Times had previously identified as misinformation. Several current and former Times reporters criticized the decision to publish the piece and accused the newspaper of publishing misinformation. The NewsGuild of New York argued that the piece encouraged violence and lacked context and vetting. Bennet resigned days later. Cotton criticized the Times for retracting his piece, saying "The New York Times editorial page editor and owner defended it in public statements but then they totally surrendered". In December 2023, Bennet wrote an essay in The Economist, stating that his ousting came despite private support for publishing the op-ed from The New York Times leadership, including publisher A.G. Sulzberger and executive editor Dean Baquet. Coverage of The Babylon Bee (2021) In June 2021, Seth Dillon, the CEO of conservative Christian news satire website The Babylon Bee, threatened legal action against The New York Times, alleging that they had defamed the site in a March 2021 article by referring to The Babylon Bee as a "far-right misinformation site". The Times first amended the article, then removed the descriptor and published a clarification about the labeling dispute between Snopes and The Babylon Bee. Taylor Swift sexuality speculation On January 4, 2024, The New York Times published an opinion piece written by Anna Marks that argues that "a Sapphic possibility" exists in the work of singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, a ubiquitous figure in popular culture. Reactions to the piece were mostly negative and criticized it for promoting conspiracy theories and invading Swift's privacy. Baldoni's defamation lawsuit American actor Justin Baldoni filed a libel lawsuit for $250 million against The New York Times alleging that the Times had published an "unverified and self-serving narrative" using "cherry-picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context" in his feud with American actress Blake Lively and had ignored evidence disputing her claims. Baldoni's lawyer stated, "In this vicious smear campaign fully orchestrated by Blake Lively and her team, the New York Times cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful 'untouchable' Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative." In dismissing the case, the judge cited opinions establishing the “litigation privilege”. The judge also viewed Baldoni as a public figure and that he needed to prove actual malice. Columbia University applications hack and Zohran Mamdani On July 3, 2025, The New York Times reported that when Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, submitted his unsuccessful college application to Columbia University, he checked the "Asian" and "Black or African American" boxes and wrote in "Ugandan" for the question about race. Mamdani is of Indian descent and was born in Uganda. The reporters used information hacked from Columbia, provided to them by an intermediary, and then confirmed by Mamdani before publication. Two days earlier, someone claiming to be the hacker had contacted Bloomberg News, providing 1.6 gigabytes of data with 2.5 million student applications sent to Columbia over several decades, and said he had stolen approximately 460 gigabytes of data in all. They said one of their goals was to check whether Columbia was still using race-conscious admissions, contrary to a Supreme Court ruling; The Times had agreed to withhold the intermediary's real name, but said he wrote under the pseudonym "Crémieux" on Substack and X, and linked to those accounts, initially describing him as "an academic and an opponent of affirmative action." The Guardian had identified "Crémieux" as Jordan Lasker a few months earlier, giving examples of his promotion of scientific racism and eugenics in his newsletter on Substack and of a co-authored paper another of the authors of which had been fired for misusing the data on which the paper relied. The Times was criticized for agreeing not to print his name and for its muted description of someone who had been described as a "white supremacist." It was also criticized for publishing hacked information. The Times had previously declined to publish hacked information that it received in 2024 about the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign from an alleged Iranian hack. Common Dreams, a progressive news organization, called the article a "hit piece." The Verge criticized the Times commitment to journalistic objectivity leading it to present a false balance in political news stories. The Verge also questioned why the Times had focused on Mamdani's college application instead of the hack itself, arguing that the hack was the bigger story and that the Times had obtained a new lead on the identity of the hacker through their source. Patrick Healy, the assistant managing editor for standards and trust at the Times, defended the article by saying "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." == See also ==