Caught Lying Again

The problem with The New York Times is that you don’t know whether they are simply misinformed or are deliberately lying.

Yesterday The New York Times article posted an article about the New England Patriots visit to the White House. The headline of the article is “Tom Brady Skips Patriots’ White House Visit Along With Numerous Teammates.”

At the end of the article is a correction:

Correction: April 19, 2017

An earlier version of this article included photos comparing the size of the Patriots’ gathering at the White House in 2015 and the gathering on Wednesday. The photo from Wednesday only showed players and coaches; the 2015 photo showed players, coaches and support staff and has been removed.

So what is this all about? It’s about The New York Times politicizing a visit by the winning Super Bowl team to the White House. The headline states that ‘numerous teammates’ skipped the visit to the White House. That headline is totally misleading, even the facts given in the article do not fit the headline.

The New York Times article states:

A Patriots spokesman, Stacey James, said Wednesday night that 34 players had attended, similar to the turnout when President George W. Bush hosted them in 2004 and 2005. He said that more than 45 players attended the ceremonies in 2002, after the franchise’s first Super Bowl, and that in 2015, when Barack Obama was president, the number of players approached 50.

James said that one reason substantially fewer players showed up this time as compared to 2015 was that some veteran players did not see the need to go twice in three years.

I realize that this is trivial pursuit, but I lived in Massachusetts about five miles from the Patriots’ stadium for thirty-five years and although I am not a Patriots fan (Jets fan), I hate to see the team being used for political purposes when there should be no politics involved. The Super Bowl win in January was spectacular, and the team should be honored for the effort involved in that comeback. Period. This is not the time for The New York Times to make political points, and the New England Patriots office has called them on their fake news.