Media

NYT Nikki Haley Headline Gets Fact-Checked By Its Own Accompanying Article

REUTERS/Mike Segar

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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An article published Thursday by the New York Times was framed around the pricey curtains that currently hang in the apartment U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley occupies in New York — but what the headline omitted was the fact that the curtains were purchased in 2016, and Haley had no say in the matter.

The article, written by the Times’ State Department correspondent Gardiner Harris, was titled “Nikki Haley’s View of New York Is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701” — and Harris tweeted that title along with the article.

The lede paragraph, likewise, did nothing to dispel the myth that Haley herself was responsible for the expenditure.

The State Department spent $52,701 last year buying customized and mechanized curtains for the picture windows in Nikki R. Haley’s official residence as ambassador to the United Nations, just as the department was undergoing deep budget cuts and had frozen hiring.

Six paragraphs in, however, Harris writes that Haley was not party to the purchase, which was planned in 2016 under the Obama administration.

A spokesman for Ms. Haley said plans to buy the curtains were made in 2016, during the Obama administration. Ms. Haley had no say in the purchase, he said.

The misleading nature of the headline did not go unnoticed on Twitter, either.

But not before other outlets followed the NYT’s lead.

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