1w ago

Times Mamdani Article Using Hacked Documents from White Supremacist Draws Outcry

www.cjr.org

Among journalists, the story also raised significant ethical concerns. As initially published, the article indicated that the hacked materials had been provided, under the condition of anonymity, by an intermediary known on Substack and X as Crémieux, who was described only as “an academic and an opponent of affirmative action.” But there’s more to that source: as The Guardian reported in March, Crémieux is the social media alias of Jordan Lasker, a promoter of white supremacist views. The Times updated its article to note that Crémieux “writes often about IQ and race.”

“It seems a little disingenuous to play this game of ‘We know something you don’t know,’” Jane Kirtley, a media ethics professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said, referring to how the paper originally characterized Crémieux. “Why would you promise him anonymity and then play hide-the-ball with the readers?” Kirtley added, “My question is: Why would you have even made that promise to this individual in the first instance? I don’t see the need.”

A reminder that the New York Times is really afraid of socialism, even a milder one.

6 comments

So this is the application form:
Mamdani was born in Uganda to a Ugandan father and an Indian (Gujarati) mother. Which box would you tick?
Mamdani opted to tick "Black/African American" as well as "Asian", and at the "Other" box wrote "Ugandan".
I personally fail to see the problem. Given the constraints of these boxes, this seems to be the most accurate way of describing his ethnicity? Am I missing something here? Why is NYT presenting this as an issue at all?
Trump saying he's white despite him being orange seems like a bigger discrepancy.
- That's the problem. A person cannot be easily "categorized" by one word.
  Unfortunately our society loves to simplify things to one word.
Forgot to put the problematic article so you all can read how ridiculous it is: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/nyregion/mamdani-columbia-black-application.html
No paywall version: https://archive.ph/roD7t
Mr. Mamdani has said he never really wanted to go to a university where his father was a professor, and wound up attending Bowdoin College in Maine, where he majored in Africana studies.
Mamdani didn't even went to Columbia yet NYT thinks this is worthy of a story.
On Thursday night, Mr. Adams characterized Mr. Mamdani’s actions as “an insult to every student who got into college the right way.”
His campaign called on Columbia to release Mr. Mamdani’s admission records and investigate whether university policies had been violated.
And of course the Trump ally failed to read the facts....
By the way, even NYT's own comment session can't stand this hit piece.
- It's the same playbook they use all the damn time. FFS when I fill out those race forms I pick random stuff because race is made up and does not belong on a government form. Even if it was semi-factual, the categories that are provided are all bullshit. "Pacific Islander" and "White" do not belong in the same selection - one is for a group of people who are from a geographically distinct location, and the other is for people who distinguish themselves as "im not one of those other groups because i was gifted with light colored skin". Not related. Not the same. So anyone freaking out about a selection on that form is snorting high grade dumbcain.
Some Times contributors took issue with the way the article was presented. Jamelle Bouie, a Times opinion columnist, posted on Bluesky, “i think you should tell readers if your source is a nazi.” He later deleted that and other posts criticizing the article, saying that they “violated Times social media standards.” Bouie did not respond to an email requesting comment, and the exact violation was not immediately clear. According to Times guidelines, journalists on staff “must not express partisan opinions” and must “be especially mindful of appearing to take sides on issues that The Times is seeking to cover objectively.” (I have a pending assignment with the Times Magazine.)
Apparently being against nazis is a partisan issue. Interesting times we live in.
- This is the LAND OF THE FREE we are talking about here! /s

6 comments