Last Thursday and just before the Independence Day holiday weekend started, the New York Times committed a rare act of journalism with the publication of a piece mildly critical of Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat mayoral nominee for New York City.
In it, they revealed that the New York Assemblyman claimed that he was “Black or African-American” on a 2009 Columbia University student application. The information was important to know, as the Times pointed out, because "Reporting that his race was Black or African American in addition to Asian could have given an advantage to Mr. Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and spent his earliest years there."
As RedState reported, the article prompted backlash among BlueCry leftists and even some Times staffers, with woke NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie posting (and then deleting) harshly critical comments about one of the reporters on the story. Patrick Healy, the NYT‘s assistant managing editor, even went so far as to write a lengthy X thread explaining to "traumatized" readers why they ran the story.
READ MORE: New York Times Staff, Readers, Angry About Actual Objective Reporting
As is oftentimes the case, however, the backstory to the story itself has proved equally if not even more interesting, with Semafor sharing that the Times pushed to get the article up quickly because it didn't want to get scooped by conservative journalist Christopher Rufo, who was also working on it:
The story, published late last week, came as the result of the release of hacked Columbia University records that were then shared with the Times. The paper believed it had reason to push the story out quickly: It did not want to be scooped by the independent journalist Christopher Rufo. Two people familiar with the reporting process told Semafor that the paper was aware that other journalists were working on the admissions story, including Rufo, a conservative best known for his crusade against critical race theory.
In a message, Rufo confirmed to Semafor that he had been reporting out the piece before the Times published its version of the story. Rufo said that he would be publishing additional details about the incident on his Substack in the coming days.
While Rufo confirmed he was scooped and congratulated the New York Times, he also had some fun with it:
What I found especially fascinating about the leftist outcry over the article was that they were taking issue with the sourcing: information gleaned from a late June cyberattack, which was shared with them by a pseudonymous academic (a Substack and X user with the handle "Crémieux") who is opposed to affirmative action.
As Healy detailed in his explainer (and as the authors wrote in the piece), they didn't just take this person's word for it. They went directly to Mamdani himself, who confirmed it but who also tried to cover for himself by saying, "Most college applications don’t have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background."
And yet, despite Mamdani verifying the accuracy of the story, the howls of outrage from the Usual Suspects have continued.
Hopefully, the Times doesn't let the pushback deter them from committing future acts of journalism against the left's preferred candidates. That said, this is, in effect, another win for conservative journalism once one takes a closer look at the particulars:
Gotta love it.
Editor's Note: The corporate media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie.
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