The New York Times has been criticized by President Donald Trump for getting stories wrong, and now the newspaper of record strayed into completely different territory over the weekend by publishing an outright lie about the boxing match between Connor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather.
The newspaper sent a Tweet saying that “McGregor’s face was completely bloodied” in the 10th round. Anyone who has seen the footage of the fight would be hard-pressed to find even a spec of blood on McGregor’s face.
Twitter users quickly noticed the falsehood and pointed it out. New York Times deleted the Tweet and issued a correction saying instead that “McGregor’s face was red and swollen.
“I guess when you get accustomed to churning out articles filled with false assumptions, deceptive insinuations, smears and outright lies, it’s hard to force yourself to conform to reality,” James Barrett, a writer for the Daily Wire, said in a post about the error.
Two writers were covering the fight for the Times—John Eligon and Victor Mather.
In the original article titled “Mayweather vs. McGregor: Highlights From Every Round,“ the authors wrote that ”Mayweather backed McGregor onto the ropes with a series of rights and lefts. McGregor’s face was completely bloodied. He was about to fall through the ropes when the referee stepped in to stop the fight with 1:55 remaining in the round.”
