Confusing tweet implies New York Times launching porn service

A bit of corner-cutting shorthand in a tweet caused an uproar on Twitter and beyond yesterday with the announcement that the New York Times, the 3rd largest newspaper in the United States, was branching out into pornography.

A former New York Times employee wrote a poorly phrased tweet about a new newsletter program the historic newspaper is launching. Mat Yurow, who held several high-profile positions at the 170 year old newspapers between 2014 and 2019, posted a tweet using a bit of shorthand:

“The New York Times is rolling out 18+ subscriber only newsletters”

Readers who saw the since-deleted tweet were understandably shocked at the implication that the well-respected newspaper considered a pillar of American journalism would be launching private newsletter services that might include adult content suitable for viewers over the age of 18 only.

After incredulous responses and retweets started pouring in, the original author responded to the first tweet with some clarification, and eventually had to delete the original tweet all together saying the bombardment would stop him from getting any work done for the day. He rephrased the news he was reporting to make it a bit less scandalous:

“To be clear, I got lazy and should have said “at least 18 newsletters”. NYT is not getting into porn. *Pours self more coffee*”

The unfortunate wording of the original tweet that implied newsletters for the 18+ aged audiences instead of that the New York Times was releasing more than 18 newsletters caused an uproar across Twitter and even made its way onto American late-night TV chat shows.

The actual news the tweet was attempting to share was that the New York Times, a newspaper with nearly 5.5 million subscribers, the vast majority of which now follow online and not in print, intends to create a service with a paywall to access extra content in newsletter form.

SOURCE: Twitter