In a stunning accusation on his program Monday night, Fox News star Tucker Carlson lit into The New York Times, telling viewers that the paper was planning to publish a story that would reveal where the conservative host lives. Carlson said the paper is so eaten up with hatred for his politics and popularity that they are willing to go to extreme lengths to stop him – even if it means putting himself and his family in physical jeopardy.
“Last week, The New York Times began working on a story about where my family and I live,” Carlson said. “So why is The New York Times doing a story on the location of my family’s house? Well, you know why. To hurt us, to injure my wife and kids so that I will shut up and stop disagreeing with them. They believe in force.
“Their story about where we live is slated to run in the paper this week,” Carlson continued. “Editors there know exactly what will happen to my family when it does run. I called them today and I told them. But they didn’t care. They hate my politics. They want the show off the air. If one of my children gets hurt because of a story they wrote, they won’t consider it collateral damage, they know it’s the whole point of the exercise: To inflict pain on our family, to terrorize us, to control what we say. That’s the kind of people they are.”
This was a mighty accusation that deserved a categorical denial.
Unfortunately, that’s not what The New York Times supplied.
“The New York Times does not plan to publish Tucker Carlson’s residence, which Carlson was aware of before his broadcast tonight,” the paper’s PR Twitter account replied.
“Tucker Carlson denounced a supposed plan by the @nytimes to publish his home address,” wrote the paper’s Nicholas Kristof. “The only problem: There was no such plan, as he knew.”
Well, there’s one other problem: That he never accused the Times of planning to print his home address. And this wordplay was not missed by observers on social media.
“I’m not sure where everyone is getting this idea that the NYT is planning on publishing Tucker’s address,” tweeted journalist Yashar Ali. “Tucker himself does not allege that they are. They are working on a story about the town in which he lives. But, given what I know, I fail to see the newsworthiness.”
“Notice how they didn’t deny that they in fact sent journalists to find out where he moved to and take pictures of his house, which people can easily find on Google maps. This newspaper is garbage,” noted The Daily Caller’s Greg Price.
As of Tuesday, no one at The New York Times has denied that there is truth to this larger accusation. And when we’re talking about a breach of journalistic ethics this extraordinary, we can only take their silence as evidence of guilt.
If so, that’s a new level of ugliness from a newspaper that has completely lost its way.
