The New York Times caved to backlash and ultimately changed its Tuesday headline about President Donald Trump’s announcement that he is considering having the U.S. military squash country-wide riots.
The original headline read “As Chaos Spreads, Trump Vows to ‘End It Now,'” NYT print editor Tom Jolly tweeted. The president vowed Monday to use the U.S. military if governors across America don’t deploy the National Guard amid protests and riots following the dead of George Floyd.
Tomorrow’s @nytimes tonight (first edition):
As Chaos Spreads, Trump Vows to “End It Now”#nytimes pic.twitter.com/D4vV55KKEY
— Tom Jolly (@TomJolly) June 2, 2020
The NYT’s headline sparked backlash, with many on the left claiming that the headline did not accurately reflect Monday’s situation. Following criticism, the publication changed its late edition headline to read “Trump Threatens to Send Troops into States,” the NY Post reported.
“If the New York Times thinks this accurately describes what happened today, I have no idea what country they’ve been living in — they should just let Trump write their headlines,” former President Barack Obama advisor Ben Rhodes tweeted regarding the NYT’s first headline.
That Trump Campaign NYT headline is also particularly offensive given how many journalists are risking their own well-being (often at the hands of the authorities) to tell us the actual truth about what is happening.
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) June 2, 2020
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wrote “You’ve got to be kidding me” in response to the publication’s original headline. Similarly, the publication received criticism from Democratic Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, who tweeted that the publication’s “headline writers are going to Both Sides the country to death.”
“Online headline is strong but print front page only vaguely alludes in graf five to an incident many NYT journalists called out as remarkable on Twitter,” Vox blogger Matthew Yglesias tweeted. The publication’s online headline was “Police Clear Protesters With Tear Gas So Trump Can Post by Church.”
with what WH did today, if NYT rewards them with this headline, I fear what they will cook-up tomorrow. https://t.co/h7c9YBlTAy
— Eric Schultz (@EricSchultz) June 2, 2020
Former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julian Castro tweeted that Trump “is acting like a budding dictator” and called the headline a “fail.” (RELATED: Trump Presses Governors To Arrest Rioters And ‘Put Them In Jail For 10 Years’)
This is not the first time the NYT has changed its headline following backlash. The publication changed a headline in August 2019 about a Trump speech following two mass shootings. The original headline read “Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism” and was changed after severe criticism by some on the left to “Assailing Hate But Not Guns.”