NYT faces backlash over calling Ayatollah Khamenei a ‘hard-line cleric’ in obit

The New York Times was called out on social media over its headline about the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Saturday.

The New York Times’ headline about the Khamenei’s death read, “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hard-Line Cleric Who Made Iran a Regional Power, Is Dead at 86.” The Times also described the supreme leader as “avuncular and magnanimous” in its obituary. 

“With his spectacles, Palestinian kaffiyeh, long robes and silver beard, Ayatollah Khamenei cast himself as a religious scholar as well as a writer and translator of works on Islam. He affected an avuncular and magnanimous aloofness, running the country from a perch above the jousting of daily politics,” the NYT’s obituary read.

The piece was met with pushback on social media from politicians and pundits. 

Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Montana, reacted and offered up his own version of the headline. 

Others reacted to the New York Times’ headline by pointing out Khamenei was responsible for the murder of thousands. The Times’ obituary includes reporting on his regime ordering the death of protesters speaking out against the government in January, as well as in 2022. 

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Fox News contributor Joe Concha wrote, “I give up…”

Marc Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist, wrote in reaction to the Times headline, “You can’t be serious.”

Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton reacted to the headline with “mostly peaceful,” a likely reference to CNN’s coverage of the Kenosha protests in 2020, during which the network displayed a chyron that read, “FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING.”

“You don’t have the media enough,” News Nation’s Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote.

“The NYT is garbage,” the Heritage Foundation’s Jason Bedrick said in response to the headline. 

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The Times responded to some of the criticism in a post to X. 

“The Times’s obituaries report and reflect lives in full, illuminating why, in our judgment, they were significant. We fairly and accurately include the newsworthy details of each life and death, and don’t treat them dishonestly to score points like you’re trying to do here,” the communications team wrote on X in response to the Libs of TikTok account’s criticism of the headline.

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The Washington Post also faced backlash over describing Khamenei as “avuncular” and having an “easy smile.” 

“With his bushy white beard and easy smile, Ayatollah Khamenei cut a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor, and he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, especially Victor Hugo’s ‘Les Misérables.’ But like the uncompromising Khomeini, he opposed moderates’ efforts to promote political and social reforms domestically and to secure rapprochement with the United States,” the Post’s obituary of the supreme leader said. 

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