New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet said the newspaper’s original Monday front-page headline that asserted President Trump urged “unity vs. racism” after mass shootings was “a bad headline” and it “was changed pretty quickly” following backlash online.
“It was written on deadline and when it was passed along for approval we all saw it was a bad headline and changed it pretty quickly,” Baquet told The Daily Beast’s editor-at-large Lloyd Grove on Tuesday.
“I understand the concern people have. Headlines matter. But I hope they read the coverage, which I will argue was strong,” Baquet also said by text, according to the Beast.{mosads}
The original headline, “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM,” was unveiled Monday night in reference to the president’s comments from the White House in which he addressed a pair of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that left more than 30 people dead.
“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Trump said on Monday. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America.”
The New York Times headline led to the hashtag #CancelNYT, which jumped to the top-trending topic on Twitter on Monday for several hours.
Several left-leaning pundits and journalists condemned the original headline, including employees of the Times itself and some 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls.
Some conservatives blasted the decision by The New York Times to change the headline by arguing the paper had folded to the “mob.”