The New York Times was ridiculed mercilessly online over its attempt to “fact-check” Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claims about artificial ingredients in breakfast cereal like Froot Loops.
Kennedy has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Following that announcement, The Times went to work to discredit Kennedy but unintentionally made his case about the need to purge artificial ingredients from Froot Loops and other highly-processed foods.
In the NYT’s Sunday article titled, “Kennedy’s Vow to Take On Big Food Could Alienate His New G.O.P. Allies,” writers Christina Jewett and Julie Creswell made total fools of themselves with the following paragraph:
Spitting out my coffee after reading this NYT "fact check" of RFK Jr. pic.twitter.com/sqL9jaeUR1
— Brad Cohn (@BradCohn) November 17, 2024
“Mr. Kennedy has singled out Froot Loops as an example of a product with too many artificial ingredients, questioning why the Canadian version has fewer than the U.S. version,” they wrote.
“But he was wrong,” the article continued authoritatively — except instead of debunking his argument, it went on to accidentally confirm exactly what Kennedy was warning about.
“The ingredient list is roughly the same, although Canada’s has natural colorings made from blueberries and carrots while the U.S. product contains red dye 40, yellow 5 and blue 1 as well as Butylated hydroxytoluene, or BHT, a lab-made chemical that is used ‘for freshness,’ according to the ingredient label,” the report said.
How embarrassing.
This is what passes for a “fact check” at The New York Times.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 17, 2024
The media lie a lot, but fortunately for us, they are also VERY stupid. pic.twitter.com/vje2bMnJET
The humiliating admission received a “correction” by the New York Times on Monday, calling it an “editing error.”
NEW: the @nytimes put a correction on its absurd piece that factchecked RFK on the ingredients in Froot Loops — calls it an “editing error” pic.twitter.com/IknAK1btQU
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) November 18, 2024
Listen to Kennedy’s relevant comment about Froot Loops and its artificial ingredients. You’ll notice the number of ingredients is irrelevant, contrary to the New York Times’ “correction” claim. Kennedy is actually talking about the nature of the artificial ingredients in Froot Loops:
Hey so RFK Jr. just said Froot Loops cause ADHD pic.twitter.com/AUXJcBLhZA
— Hayley Bell (@hbellinpolitics) September 25, 2024
RELATED: Watch: RFK Jr. Exposes Seed Oils, Processed Foods & Agro-Industrial Complex on Fox