"The Paper of Record" was duped...
... by fake polling data published by Wedgewood Polls. After being challenged by polling aggregator FiftyPlusOne, Wedgewood released a press statement claiming the fraudulent data was part of "an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern polling industry..." Wedgewood's conclusion? It is "Far too easy (to expose how little scrutinization exists in the media and public commentary)".
Whether or not Wedgewood's experimental project narrative was a post hoc CYA effort is open for debate. What's not in doubt is that the New York Times ran with bogus data and even incorporated it into their own polling aggregation. Would the NYT have scrutinized Wedgewood's data more carefully had it been favorable to Republicans? I think we can make a pretty good guess at the answer, given NYT's Democrat propaganda tendencies.
Link: https://x.com/WedgewoodPolls/status/2112669955917242510
