The New York Times on Wednesday updated a story marking the 18th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and deleted a tweet that said “airplanes took aim” at the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center.
“We’ve deleted an earlier tweet to this story and have edited for clarity. The story has also been updated,” said a tweet posted to the official New York Times Twitter account.
The original tweet linked to a story about families gathering at the memorial site in New York City but was widely called out since it did not mention that the planes that hit the towers were hijacked by terrorists from al-Qaeda.
The re-issued tweet with the story link now says, “18 years after nearly 3,000 people were lost, families of those killed in the terror attacks will gather at the 9/11 memorial. There will be a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., then the names of the dead — one by one — will be recited.”
Twitter users were quick to jump on the Times’ announcement that a tweet was deleted, posting the original screenshot. Some framed the incident as proof of a media bias.
In this now-deleted tweet, the New York Times attempts to blame 9/11 on the AIRPLANES that “took aim” and “brought down” the World Trade Center. What lengths they will go to to divert attention from who actually did this! pic.twitter.com/gIpyKLlkYa
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 11, 2019
“Those planes did not fly themselves,” wrote Ian Miles Cheong.
“I can’t believe I haven’t even clocked in yet, and we already have today’s dumb 9/11 tweet, AND it was from the New York Times,” wrote Alex Griswold of the Washington Free Beacon.
The Times did not immediately return a request for comment.