{"id":538454,"date":"2025-10-30T21:40:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/538454\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T21:40:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:40:16","slug":"botched-bill-de-blasio-interview-was-humiliating-times-of-london-editor-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/538454\/","title":{"rendered":"Botched Bill De Blasio Interview Was “Humiliating,” Times Of London Editor Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE<\/strong>: A senior figure at The Times of London<\/a> has bemoaned the damage done to the Rupert Murdoch<\/a>-owned newspaper\u2019s reputation after a reporter was duped by a man pretending to be Bill de Blasio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIan Brunskill, an associate editor at The Times, emailed the newsroom lamenting the \u201chumiliating\u201d botched interview with the former New York City mayor. The email (read in full below) was subject-lined: \u201cFake (Times) news\/must read.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBrunskill said the de Blasio interview \u2014 and a separate hoax story involving an \u201cAI-generated case study\u201d about a fake royal household employee \u2014 had done \u201cserious damage to our reputation\u201d and \u201ccould have been avoided by good practice and due diligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe should have been on our guard. We should have tried much harder to speak to the people concerned,\u201d he wrote in the email, seen by Deadline. \u201cThere are no excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPublished earlier this week, The Times\u2019 story carried quotes purporting to be from de Blasio, in which he raised concerns about Democrat Zohran Mamdani\u2019s campaign for office.<\/p>\n

\n\tSemafor reported<\/a> that The Times did track down a man named Bill De Blasio, but he was actually a Long Island wine importer. This person told Semafor he played along, responding to The Times journalist over email and using ChatGPT<\/a> to compose a response criticizing Mamdani\u2019s tax plans.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile the ambition is admirable, the cost estimates \u2013 reportedly exceeding $7bn annually \u2013 rest on optimistic assumptions about eliminating waste and raising revenue through new taxes,\u201d the impostor said. \u201cIn my view, the math doesn\u2019t hold up under scrutiny, and the political hurdles are substantial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDe Blasio said the quotes were \u201centirely false and fabricated\u201d and criticized Murdoch\u2019s newspaper for its \u201cabsolute violation of journalistic ethics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Times retracted the story and said: \u201cThe Times has apologised to Bill de Blasio and removed the article immediately after discovering that our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe hoax interview has generated a flurry of press reports on both sides of the Atlantic, including in The New York Post, which is also owned by Murdoch. De Blasio said he supports Mamdani and believes \u201chis vision is both necessary and achievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHere is Brunskill\u2019s email to staff:<\/p>\n

\n

Twice in the past few weeks we\u2019ve been caught out by fake interviews. One involved a bogus Al-generated case study provided by a dubious PR outfit, the other a fake email purporting to come from a high-profile figure in US politics.<\/p>\n

The first hoax (which others fell for too) prompted not just ridicule but calls for the press regulator to launch a full investigation into standards. The second (our own \u201cexclusive\u201d, alas) led to a widely reported retraction and apology.<\/p>\n

Both humiliating episodes did serious damage to our reputation. Both could have been avoided by good practice and due diligence.<\/p>\n

There were red flags. An unknown PR company with no telephone number offering to put us in touch with an unknown \u201cexpert\u201d who could be interviewed only via email was one. A well-known public figure expressing a view completely at odds with his previous statements, and doing it from a personal Gmail address, was another.<\/p>\n

We should have been on our guard. We should have tried much harder to speak to the people concerned. If that\u2019s not possible, why not? We \u2013 reporters and editors \u2013 should be asking: Who is telling me this and why? How do I know they\u2019re who they say they are? How plausible is what I\u2019m being told? What can I do to check?<\/p>\n

Those questions are absolutely basic. Asking them should be second nature to anyone working for a paper with a long history of trusted reporting. There are no excuses. As a condition of employment, we\u2019re bound by the Editors\u2019 Code. It requires us to take care to avoid inaccuracy. If there\u2019s a complaint, Ipso [Independent Press Standards Organisation] will expect us to show precisely what taking care involved. We can\u2019t afford to be fooled.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: A senior figure at The Times of London has bemoaned the damage done to the Rupert Murdoch-owned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[173759,748,1315,393,4884,257,2452,36115,173760,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-538454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-bill-de-blasio","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-chatgpt","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-media","15":"tag-rupert-murdoch","16":"tag-the-times-of-london","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115465291287287800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}