The New York Times added an editors’ note to a Thursday story saying a photo of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley should not have been included with a story about how the State Department had spend $52,701 for curtains at her official residence in New York.
The Times had received considerable blowback for the piece, headlined “Nikki Haley’s View of New York is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701.”
{mosads}The headline on the story was changed Friday to read “State Department Spent $52,701 on Curtains for Nikki Haley’s Residence,” but the preview headline on the paper’s official Twitter feed remains unchanged.
The editors’ note attached to the story said the article and headline “created an unfair impression” about those responsible for “the purchase in question.”
“An earlier version of this article and headline created an unfair impression about who was responsible for the purchase in question,” reads the statement. “While Nikki R. Haley is the current ambassador to the United Nations, the decision on leasing the ambassador’s residence and purchasing the curtains was made during the Obama administration, according to current and former officials.”
“The article should not have focused on Ms. Haley, nor should a picture of her have been used,” it concludes. “The article and headline have now been edited to reflect those concerns, and the picture has been removed.”
The changes comes after the Times was ripped on social media for being misleading in its headline after Haley’s spokesman told the paper the purchase of the curtains occurred during the Obama administration and that the fixtures were installed last year under former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s tenure that ended earlier this year.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also took to Twitter to slam the Times for the “subtle” manner the “media pushes their bias.”
“Want an example of subtle ways media pushes their bias?” Rubio said in a tweet. “See this completely false & misleading headline about @nikkihaley. They are not “her curtains” & buried deep in story is the fact that this purchase was made under Obama administration.”