The newspaper had claimed that satirical website The Babylon Bee “trafficked in misinformation.”
The New York Times has retracted its claim that The Babylon Bee is guilty of misinformation “under the guise of satire” after the satire site’s CEO Seth Dillon announced he was considering legal action.
Dillon informed his Twitter followers that the New York Times had informed his legal team that it would remove the libellous claim after “careful review” of the offending statement.
“This is huge. The NY Times was using misinformation to smear us as being a source of it. That’s not merely ironic; it’s malicious. We pushed back hard and won. Thanks to everyone who voiced and offered their support. We don’t have to take this nonsense lying down. Remember that,” Dillon tweeted.
Big update here. The @nytimes has responded to our demand letter by removing defamatory statements about us from their article. Here's their email to our counsel notifying us of the correction. https://t.co/lv0eYo6NzK pic.twitter.com/OLi5KzMzej
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) June 14, 2021
The Times story now includes a correction, “An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the Babylon Bee, a right-leaning satirical website, and a controversy regarding the handling of its content by Facebook and the fact-checking site Snopes. While both Facebook and Snopes previously have classified some Babylon Bee articles as misinformation, rather than satire, they have dropped those claims, and the Babylon Bee denies that it has trafficked in misinformation.”
We objected to this pretty strongly, so @MikeIsaac removed the sentence that said we trafficked in misinformation. In its place, he put an update that said we'd feuded with @snopes and @Facebook about whether we're misinformation or satire. But that wasn't true, either.
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) June 14, 2021
This is huge. The NY Times was using misinformation to smear us as being a source of it. That's not merely ironic; it's malicious. We pushed back hard and won. Thanks to everyone who voiced and offered their support. We don't have to take this nonsense lying down. Remember that.
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) June 14, 2021
Dillon had told Fox News that many mainstream media outlets who condemn misinformation are in fact guilty of it themselves.
“They’re using misinformation to smear us as being a source of misinformation,” Dillon claimed.
“They are, in fact the ones trafficking in misinformation under the guise of journalism.”
The Babylon Bee is now famous for its witty characterizations of many leftist talking points, institutions and personalities, winning a large audience in what appears to be a growing pushback against political correctness.
Sesame Street Introduces 'Todd', A White Male Muppet Who Is Blamed For Everything https://t.co/ER36qcpL2s
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 29, 2021
Heartwarming: Amy Coney Barrett Just Adopted A Local Troubled Youngster Named Hunter https://t.co/PCM6qQoHyx
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 19, 2020
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