New York Times Edits Out Iranian Quote: 'I Hope the New York Times Building Burns Down'

June 16th, 2013 12:09 AM

The website Newsdiffs.com is all about showing people how newspapers update their stories, and add some things, and delete some things.

This was especially interesting in a New York Times story from Friday on Iran, where they found it advantageous to edit out an America-hating Iranian who wished the Times building would burn down:

“He is a war veteran, a good manager and a religious person,” said Noushin Sobhani, 31, a gynecologist. She and her parents voted at the Imam Sadegh University, where most of Iran’s cadre of bureaucrats are trained. “We hate America,” her father said, smiling. “I hope The New York Times building burns down.”

The story began:

As voting in the Iranian presidential election began on Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, lashed out at the United States.

Addressing American skepticism about the outcome of the election, he told reporters: “To hell with you if you do not believe in our election!. If the Iranian nation had to wait for you to see what you believe in and what you do not, then the Iranian nation would have lagged behind.”

In other Times-editing news, several media sites mocked the Times for leaving out the ages of Beastie Boy Mike "Mike D" Diamond and his wife Tamar Davis (who are 46 and 51) in a Home section feature on their abode.

Ira Stoll of Smartertimes.com cracked: “If the paper is going to cut those kinds of deals, some more transparency would be great: ‘We agreed not to print the couple’s ages because they threatened to kick us and our photographer out of their house if we insisted on it, and then we’d have to find some other people to write about, which would be more work.’”