Brian Williams, the editor of the New York Times, has been mocked for getting Bloomberg’s math breakdown completely wrong
MSNBC Brian Williams Bloomberg : Someone could have saved MSNBC’s Brian Williams and New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay some embarrassment and an apology Thursday night if they had simply paused and double-checked basic math.
Instead, Williams and Gay marvelled on air at Mike Bloomberg’s campaign spending in response to a Twitter user’s message.
The problem was that the post’s math was utterly wrong, and neither Williams nor Gay seemed to notice.
“Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads,” said the Super Tuesday evening post, which has since been removed.
The population of the United States is 327 million people. He could have given each American $1 million and still had money left over, and I believe that a $1 million cheque would change people’s lives.
Yet he squandered it all on advertisements and STILL LOST.”
Williams gushed, “Things’s a wonderful way of phrasing it.”
“That’s a fantastic way of saying it. “That is correct,” Gay agreed.
In actuality, if Bloomberg had divided his advertising funds evenly among all Americans, the per-capita cash-out would have been less than $1.53, barely enough to ride the subway in New York City.
“It turns out Mara and I both earned the same math grades. I’m referring to the tweet that both of us misconstrued.
He could give a dollar to each American. I didn’t have it in high school, either. I’m not going to have it tonight.
I admit that I was mistaken. Sorry for the inconvenience. Later in the show, Williams assured viewers that the tweet was incorrect. “Trash in, garbage out,” as the saying goes.
New Jersey journalist Michael Salfino was one Twitter user who noticed the incorrect calculation.
“What is wrong with these people?” says the narrator. Salfino penned the text.
“If there were 327 people in the United States, this would be exactly here.
This also has a negative impact on the New York Times. “Can someone take a two-second break and think?”
On social media, “The 11th Hour” eventually pointed out the error.
“On the air tonight, we referenced a tweet that was based on incorrect math.
After the next commercial break, we fixed the mistake and removed it from later editions of tonight’s show.
After the mishap, the verified Twittter account for Williams’ show stated, “We apologise for the error.”
The author of the original tweet had her Twitter account set to private, and in her Twitter bio she stated, “I know, I’m horrible at math.”
The arithmetic is obviously “spectacularly incorrect,” according to National Review editor Charles C. W. Cooke, but it’s also highly telling.
“This is why so many left-wing Americans believe that ‘the billionaires’ can pay for anything.
It’s why, despite her ludicrous claim that she could fund a slew of massive initiatives without raising taxes on anyone save the very wealthy, Elizabeth Warren was lauded by the media,” Cooke said.
“It’s why Democrat after Democrat vows not to raise ‘middle-class taxes,’ despite offering programmes that necessitate such a hike.
How did this dreadful tweet find up on TV, where it was endorsed? Why did Mara Gay agree to it in the first place?
Why didn’t Brian Williams pick up on it? Because the participants in this video believed it to be true. This is their perspective of the world.”
Read Also
