NY Times fires back at Trump: ‘We did not apologize’

The New York Times said on Wednesday that President Trump’s claim earlier in the day that it apologized for its coverage of the 2016 presidential election is “false.”

“We stand by our coverage,” the newspaper tweeted.

.@realdonaldtrump False, we did not apologize. We stand by our coverage & thank our millions of subscribers for supporting our journalism.

— NYTCo Communications (@NYTimesComm) March 29, 2017

Trump earlier Wednesday attacked the Times, saying the newspaper apologized to subscribers because its “coverage was so wrong.” 

{mosads}“Remember when the failing @nytimes apologized to its subscribers, right after the election, because their coverage was so wrong,” he tweeted.

“If the people of our great country could only see how viciously and inaccurately my administration is covered by certain media!”

Trump’s tweets followed the Times’s publication of a front-page story about his administration’s inner workings.

The article quoted unidentified sources who suggested tension between Vice President Pence and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.

The Times published a letter last November vowing its staff would “report America and the world honestly” after Trump’s victory.

“You can rely on the New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the president and his team,” the letter said.

The message, which was signed by publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and executive editor Dean Baquet, also thanked the Times’s readers for their loyalty.

Trump has claimed that the letter was actually an apology for the newspaper’s poor coverage of his 2016 campaign.

“The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their BAD coverage of me,” he tweeted the day the communication was sent. “I wonder if they will change — doubt it?”

Trump has repeatedly accused media outlets, including the Times, of bias and inaccuracy in their coverage of him.

The president has since begun labeling news organizations and even individual journalists “fake news” when he believes they are misleading Americans.

CNN Money reported Wednesday that The New York Times Co. shares are up 30 percent since Trump’s win in November.

The Times also reported last month that its fourth-quarter profit and revenue had exceeded expectations.

“In Q4, we added 276,000 net new digital news subscriptions, the single best quarter since 2011, the year the pay model launched,” chief executive Mark Thompson said in a statement.

The Times said it had an increase of 41,000 paid subscriptions on both the print and digital fronts in the seven-day period after Election Day.

The newspaper added that it received more digital subscriptions in the last three months of 2016 than both 2013 and 2014 combined.