Could we please see this sentence in the New York Times more often?
It’s the one that goes, “This is false.”
Somebody on Twitter sent the link to me. They knew I would appreciate it.
Here it is in context, in an article on Ray’s Pizza (the real one) closing down in Soho. Some guy who opened another, fake Ray’s says (well, actually he said it in 1991…) that no one ever heard of the founder of the original Ray’s, Ralph Cuomo.
That’s when it happened. The New York Times reporter, Michael Wilson, actually typed into the Times system, “This is false.” And the editors? Why, they let it stand! Fit to print! Then the Internets lit up…
Don’t you wish you saw those three little words a little more often? Some suit on the TV goes, “Every time we’ve cut taxes, revenues have gone up!” and the next day the New York Times calmly reports it, followed by the three little words… This is false.
Don’t be cynical. Don’t say never. It just happened with a random quote by a pizza guy from twenty years ago.
It’d also be dandy to see that when, say, Michele Bachmann says that the Founding Fathers worked to eradicate slavery, or Sarah Palin says that Paul Revere rode to warn the British. It’s real easy! “This is false.”
