The New York Times Has Hit a Desperate New Low

The Paper of Record is competing for scoops with white nationalists in its efforts to sink Zohran Mamdani.

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If you’ve been following the New York city mayoral race, you’ll know that upstart Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani walloped former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Party primary, and that the establishment is doing everything in its power to stop Mamdani before the general election.

That includes The New York Times, which published a hit piece late last week—with three bylines and ahead of a long summer holiday weekend, no less—about the boxes Mamdani checked on his Columbia University admissions application. (Mamdani, who’s ethnically South Asian but was born in Uganda, checked both “Asian” and “Black or African American.” If you fail to see the scandal, join the club.)

The story was immediately denounced as a sleazy smear, particularly since Mamdani, far from nefariously gaming the system as the Times appeared to imply, didn’t even get into Columbia. But one question remained: why did the paper put the piece out at such a weird moment in the calendar?

We now know why there was such a big rush: the Times was racing to beat a white nationalist to the punch. And somehow, that’s not the only crime against journalism here.