“There, but for the grace of God, go I” isn’t a bad mantra to live by.
In other words, don’t revel in someone else’s misfortune, when there’s every chance it could be you next.
And so it seems, some journalists in particular have adopted this stance when it comes to an almighty error by Kiwi journalist Bevan Hurley, writing for the British newspaper The Times.
Hurley wrote an article about New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, quoting former New York mayor (and Mamdani ally) Bill de Blasio as saying the policies of the would-be mayor “don’t add up”.
It was quite a turn-around for de Blasio, and quite something too for a former Democratic mayor to speak out in the media AGAINST someone he had always supported.
Or at least it would have been… if it were true.
Because no sooner than the article was published, de Blasio posted this:
And quicker than you could say “fake news”, the story was gone:
It turns out that Bevan Hurley had communicated with ‘the wrong’ Bill de Blasio.
He’d certainly published accurate quotes from A Bill DeBlasio.
But this Bill DeBlasio (note the different syntax in their surnames) was a wine importer from Long Island, and not the former mayor of New York City.
According to Semaphor, Hurley had sent an email to an address he seemingly thought belonged to Bill de Blasio, the former mayor.
He said he was writing an article looking at Zohran Mamdani’s policy plans and their estimated costs, and that:
“I would greatly appreciate your insights on Mr Mandani’s (sp) ambitious agenda, potential obstacles, and whether the sums add up.”
Now Bill the Wine Guy knew full well what was going on - he’d had a decade worth of mix-ups already.
But he decided to answer Hurley’s questions anyway. In his own words:
“I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor. So I just gave him my opinion.”
And somehow, that opinion - one sharply at odds with that of Bill the Former Mayor - made it into print, albeit briefly, in one of the most read and respected newspapers in the world.
So what went wrong?
Was it a systemic editorial failure at The Times, or a mistake made by a sole journalist?
Probably a bit of both.
But even considering the mantra of TBFTGOGGI (go back to the top of this post if you don’t get it), I’ve been surprised at the sympathy - and the lack of accountability - that’s been shown.
Hurley for his part has said nothing; certainly not that I’ve seen. But The Times itself issued a statement, saying in part:
“… our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor.”
Respectfully, that’s B.S.
Your reporter was not misled. He simply didn’t check his source, and published what he thought was a scoop.
Also, the individual says he never claimed to be the former New York mayor, and maybe the onus was on your reporter to check that he WAS in fact the former New York mayor!
Which leads to the next logical question - where does the buck stop?
It’s true that someone, SOMEWHERE along the editorial chain at The Times should have questioned the veracity of the story. It was a massive departure for Bill the Former Mayor, and you know what they say about stories that seem too good to be true.
Events like this also, unfortunately, raise questions about the editorial decision-making on ALL stories that any media outlet publishes. After all, if something like this was able to slip through the net at a major international newspaper, then what else potentially has?
We can’t say how The Times has dealt with things internally, but interestingly, Hurley’s website bio now says this:
That suggests either (a) Hurley still works for The Times, but no longer as a senior U.S. reporter, or (b) he no longer works for The Times at all, and the bio that sits on Hurley’s existing work has been adjusted to reflect that.
Either way, I was pretty staggered to hear this reaction from a prominent New Zealand journalist on his podcast:
“… if Hurley has been the sacrificial lamb in all this, I think that would be a phenomenal overreaction to what is public and fun and messy, but certainly by no means all his error, and nor one that he should be hung out to dry on…”
First of all, not checking your source and then misidentifying and misquoting a former mayor of New York City is “fun and messy”? Really?
But as for “phenomenal overreaction”… well if Bevan Hurley has lost his job, then that is absolutely a shame for him - but it can’t be unexpected.
It was such a rookie error… and if they were being honest with themselves, I reckon most journalists would consider themselves very, VERY lucky indeed to keep their job, had they been in a similar situation.
Ultimately this should be - at the very least - a cautionary tale.
An email address can be as anonymous as an X account, a Facebook page, or a Reddit username.
It’s also, by today’s standards, pretty low-tech.
In an ideal world, you’d be doing every interview in person - as they used to be done.
But you just get the feeling that all of this could have been avoided if Hurley, or indeed any of his superiors at The Times, had just suggested that Bill the Wine Guy do an interview over Zoom…
You know… just to be sure.
