Headline Bias? New York Times Issues Fox News-Related Correction

Like we and many outlets did on Wednesday, the New York Times wrote a story about Fox News’ strong ratings on election night.

But the headline of the piece has caused the Times to issue a correction.

The original headline was “GOP Victories Inflate Ratings For Fox News.” Clearly, the insinuation is that the contributing factor to FNC’s ratings victory is because they were inflated by the Republican victories. That implies some level of FNC bias, and the New York Times seems to have realized that today. (It should be noted that the headline writer is different than the author of the piece.)

The Times‘ correction today reads:

A headline on Thursday with an article about television ratings for elections coverage on Tuesday night may have left the incorrect impression that ratings for Fox News on Election Night were artificially increased. The network’s coverage had bigger ratings gains than those of its rivals; its ratings were not inflated.

And now the headline on the original piece (which also includes the correction) is “Fox Wins Election Night Ratings on Cable.”

FNC and the NYT have had a, well, complicated relationship, dating back to a major flare-up last July. But recently they’ve been playing nice (or nicer). The Times has even assigned an editor to watch more Fox News!

We think this is just a bump in the road for the two media juggernauts.

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