Newsworthiness aside, The New York Times slipped up on ethics in its not-so-big Mamdani exclusive

I’m inclined to believe that any information about a major political figure is newsworthy, especially when they are new to the spotlight. Still, I think it’s important to analyze some of the ethical issues that have been raised by last Thursday’s New York Times report (gift link) that New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani identified himself as “Asian” and “Black or African American” on a Columbia University entrance application when he was 17 years old.

Become a supporter of Media Nation for just $6 a month. You’ll receive a weekly newsletter with exclusive commentary, a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and a song of the week.

The story sparked outrage on social media, with many Mamdani supporters arguing that the Times made it seem like the candidate had done something wrong when, in fact, he was being entirely accurate: Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents. I’m old enough to remember that Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, identified herself as African American. Though white, she was born and raised in Mozambique. Heinz Kerry was mocked in some circles, but, like Mamdani, she was not wrong. (It’s fair to note that both Heinz Kerry and Mamdani ignored the generally accepted meaning of “African American.”)

Liam Scott’s detailed overview in the Columbia Journalism Review of both the Mamdani story and the fallout provide most of what you need to know, but I want to expand on a few of the issues that have been raised.

First, the story was based on a hack by a right-wing activist who was granted anonymity by the Times. But as the CJR notes, it seems probable that the source was a white supremacist named Jordan Lasker, which means the Times was wading around in some mighty fetid waters. Maybe it doesn’t matter, since Mamdani confirmed the account when interviewed by the Times. But yikes.

Second, the Times has a history, overplaying the Hillary Clinton email story in 2016 so excessively that the paper may well have elected Donald Trump president. Additional reporting by the Times and other news outlets about hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee were no doubt conflated in the minds of low-information voters. As former Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote in her book “Newsroom Confidential,” there was a sense among the paper’s editors that they were free to bash Clinton because she was destined to win, offering “coverage that seemed to go beyond normal vetting and that seemed to lack perspective about what really deserved to be considered of great importance.” In many circles, “but her emails” still resonates.

Third, the Times dumped its public editor years ago, with then-publisher Arthur Sulzerberger Jr. justifying it by saying the public could hold the Times to account on social media. How did that work out? Times columnist Jamelle Bouie took his employer to task on Bluesky, writing, “i think you should tell readers if your source is a nazi” and then deleted it, explaining he had run afoul of the paper’s internal policies. Instead, we had standards editor Patrick Healy defending the Times on Twitter and in the CJR, saying, “What matters most here is whether the information was true and factual — it was, confirmed by Mr. Mamdani; that it was independently confirmed; and that it is relevant to the public.”

Columbia School of Journalism professor Bill Grueskin wrote on Bluesky of Healy’s self-justification that “the only thing it truly illuminates is the need for the Times to bring an independent journalist back into the role of public editor.”

This is a defensive, 10-post thread from an NYT boss, and the only thing it truly illuminates is the need for the Times to bring an independent journalist back into the role of public editor.

— Bill Grueskin (@bgrueskin.bsky.social) 2025-07-05T00:35:09.057Z

Fourth, there was the clear implication that Mamdani had done something wrong and shameful. Maybe the story could be justified on the grounds that it offered some interesting insights into the person who’s likely to be New York’s next mayor, but the tone of the article was inappropriately harsh. The three reporters who wrote it said, “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.” Yes, and did you know that Mamdani is African American?

The headline in the Times’ print edition — a shrinking part of the paper’s footprint, but more influential in New York City than elsewhere — was pure toxicity: “Mamdani Faces Scrutiny Over College Application.” As The Atlantic’s James Fallows wrote at Bluesky:

You could write a book about one atrocious headline in print NYT today (I sort of wrote this book 30 years ago, Breaking the News, but others can take a turn.) What’s wrong this headline? Mamdani “faces scrutiny” **ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY** because NYT decided to make this a “thing.” Really bad.

Now, let me swerve for a moment and mention a story reported by Semafor’s Max Tani on Sunday evening, because I think it suggests a different route the Times might have taken. Tani writes that the Times rushed the story in order to beat right-wing activist Christopher Rufo, who, they had learned, was also working on it. Rufo confirmed Tani’s scoop.

So, to review, the Times had a story spoon-fed to them by source to whom it had promised anonymity and who, if the dots may be connected, is a white supremacist; that strongly suggests Mamdani had done something wrong when in fact he was accurately describing his background; and that was rushed in order to beat Rufo, whose disingenuous attacks on critical race theory and gender have done so much to warp our cultural discourse, including in the Times.

To loop back to where I started: I’m not saying there is no news value in the Times account. But this is one where the better course of action might have been to let Rufo have his exclusive. By breaking this story, and by raising so many ethical questions about its own behavior along the way, the Times has made itself a bigger issue than whatever racial categories Mamdani chose to check off in applying to a university he wasn’t even admitted to.

The Times messed up on the atmospherics, the substance and in its ethical judgment.