NPR apologized for promoting an article with a tweet expressing disappointment that three black candidates lost the Boston mayoral election to Michelle Wu, an Asian American.
The news outlet deleted the tweet, acknowledged it was “causing harm,” and updated the headline to focus on the black candidates who lost instead.
“We realize we don’t always get things right the first time, and our previous tweet/headline misrepresented the story,” NPR wrote on social media. “We deleted the previous tweet, which was causing harm, and have updated the story.”
NPR appears to be having a struggle session because the wrong type of female minority won the Boston mayoral election. pic.twitter.com/FPwKHbEB0a
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) November 16, 2021
We realize we don’t always get things right the first time, and our previous tweet/headline misrepresented the story.
We deleted the previous tweet, which was causing harm, and have updated the story
— NPR (@NPR) November 16, 2021
TWITTER ERUPTS AT BIDEN’S USE OF ‘NEGRO’ IN VETERANS DAY SPEECH
The report in question was authored by Tovia Smith, an award-winning NPR national correspondent based in Boston, according to her bio page. It was published Tuesday morning and bore the headline, “Cheers and some letdown as 1st elected woman and person of color becomes Boston Mayor.”
As many news outlets do, NPR’s main account tweeted the story with the announcement of Wu’s victory and a sentence from the story. The subsequent sentence pulled directly from the article said some viewed Wu’s victory as a turning point while others were disappointed the three black candidates lost.
Twitter users chastised NPR, claiming its story pushed racial division and was generally bad writing.
Ponder this deleted tweet by @NPR. Imagine the kind of worldview one has to think this way—hyper race consciousness, obsession with racial hierarchies, and merit & fairness inversion. Now imagine an entire channel devoted to promulgating this ideology. That is what NPR has become pic.twitter.com/Y9MEXTIXvs
— Peter Boghossian (@peterboghossian) November 16, 2021
We are all Americans. Identity politics is anti-American. Defund NPR. https://t.co/r39oWE4yBo
— Christina Pushaw ? (@ChristinaPushaw) November 16, 2021
This is . . . not good journalism. https://t.co/VlM6MJEcCQ
— Andrew Yang?⬆️?? (@AndrewYang) November 16, 2021
lol @NPR deleted this, but we will never forget this major microaggression against common sense. pic.twitter.com/M2kbVDscNN
— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) November 16, 2021
NPR deleted the tweet and posted a new one around 1:30 p.m., using the revised headline of the story, “Why Boston will need to wait longer for its first elected Black mayor.”
Though NPR says it changed the headline and deleted the tweet, the story’s first paragraph includes the sentence it had posted in the deleted tweet.
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Wu won the mayoral election this month with 33.4% of the votes, compared to the runner-up candidate, Annissa Essaibi George, with 22.5%.
