The New York Times toned down a headline Monday morning after it was accused of spreading rumors about supposed violence on Caribbean islands damaged by Hurricane Irma.
The report’s original headline read, “Violence Erupts on Desperate Caribbean Islands: ‘All the Food is Gone.'” Pretty terrifying, right? Maybe. Maybe not.
The claim could be a load of nonsense, as the Times itself reported in the story’s 15th paragraph, which reads [emphasis added]:
While there is no way to verify such claims, they illustrate the fear and the rumors swirling through an island as people are cut off from the rest of the world, with roads blocked and most areas without cellular service. News, for the most part, is being relayed by word of mouth, leading to outsize claims. One rumor making the rounds on Sunday was that hundreds of people had died, some at the hands of escapees from a local prison.
One journalist, Stacy-Marie Ishmae, who noted the major discrepancy between the headline and the body of its story, also spotted that the report carried six bylines, but that only two authors actually reported from areas affected by the hurricane.
The Times’ Ed Augustin contributed to the story from Havana, Cuba. Azam Ahmed reported from Marigot, St. Martin. The Times’ Kirk Semple, however, reported from Mexico City. His colleagues Alissa J. Rubin and Aurelien Breeden contributed from Paris. Lastly, the Times’ Patrick Kingsley reported from London.
Complaints over the report’s headline made their way eventually to Times international editor Michael Slackman, who promised Monday that the weekend story would be updated.
“Fair criticism of the headline. We will fix this asap,” he said on social media.
The report’s headline has been amended so that the online version now reads, “Desperation Mounts in Caribbean Islands: ‘All the Food Is Gone.'” Monday’s print edition reads the same.
Better, but isn’t this tweaked headline still mostly unverified, according to the Times’ own reporting?
