The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman deleted a tweet late Sunday night that attacked Fox News’ media reporters. She was transparent about the deletion and her reasoning for both creating and deleting the tweet.
“I deleted an overly broad tweet about the Fox media team. I should be more specific – some Fox shows aired comments I made for several days out of context, and some reporters used them in media stories on the website out of context. A tweet also got mischaracterized today,” wrote Haberman, who is also an analyst on CNN, a competitor of Fox News.
Screenshots of her earlier tweet are still available on the website.
Haberman posted the “overly broad” tweet on Sunday. “This website publishes such garbage esp when it comes to media,” the post read, linking to a Fox News digital article headlined, “Reporters, activists, rush to judge Florida Pride parade crash before investigation.”
She followed that up with another tweet: “Politicians say something, reporters cover it. ‘OUTRAGEOUS,’ scream Fox dot com media reporters.” Both tweets were later deleted.
In the Fox News piece in question, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis was quoted as initially saying a deadly vehicular crash on Saturday that reportedly came close to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz could be a “terrorist attack.” Haberman and other reporters tweeted and retweeted pieces quoting the mayor, and were included in a roundup by the Fox News piece. Additional reporting came out suggesting the driver of the vehicle was part of the Gay Men Chorus, muddying reports.