The New York Times corrects false attribution of antisemitic remark to Charlie Kirk

The New York Times has been forced to correct an article that wrongly attributed an antisemitic statement to conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The article, Where Charlie Kirk Stood on Key Political Issues, claimed Kirk himself had made the remark during an episode of his podcast. In fact, he was quoting from a social media post — one amplified by Elon Musk — before going on to criticise it.

The original wording gave the impression that Kirk endorsed the comment: “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” Kirk repeated the post on his show on 16 November 2023 but added: “Now I don’t like generalisations. Not every Jewish person believes that.”

The Times issued a correction acknowledging the error: “An earlier version of this article described incorrectly an antisemitic statement that Charlie Kirk had made on an episode of his podcast. He was quoting a statement from a post on social media and went on to critique it. It was not his own statement.”

The correction comes at a sensitive moment. Kirk, who was frequently accused of antisemitism by critics during his career, was killed last week at a university event in Utah. Inaccuracies of this kind only deepen disputes over how his record is represented, particularly when corrections reach only a fraction of the original audience.

For a newspaper of record, the misattribution raises a familiar question: if the most basic details of a quotation can be mishandled, what confidence should readers have in the wider framing of a political figure’s legacy?