The New York Times came under intense fire on Sunday over what some called "deeply dangerous" headline about Donald Trump.
The Times has earned the ire of Trump for its numerous stories breaking news about his administrations, but readers have also accused the outlet of "normalizing" the only president with a criminal record boasting numerous felonies.
That criticism came to a head over the weekend, when the Times published a headline about Trump's recent address to cadets at West Point.
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The Times' headline, Trump Gives Commencement Address at West Point, Stressing a New Era, took center stage on social media as readers accused the outlet of burying the most important aspects of the president's unconventional speech.
Climate scientist David Ho, for instance, put the Times headline juxtaposed with one from the Independent. The latter reads, "Trump gives rambling speech about trophy wives, golf and the ‘great late’ Al Capone in politically-charged West Point address."
"Hard to believe they're talking about the same event," Ho wrote.
Historian Kevin M. Kruse also chimed in on the comparison, asking, "Which news outlet is actually informing its readers about what happened?"
Conservative attorney and anti-Trump activist George Conway also weighed in, writing, "We make jokes about this sometimes because it’s laughable. But when journalists try to make sense of the nonsensical, rational out of the irrational, and coherence out of the incoherence, they affirmatively do the public interest great harm."
Political scientist and scholar Norman Ornstein agreed with Conway, saying, "Normalizing the abnormal is sadly normal for so much of the mainstream press."
"The NYT has done some terrific reporting and had some great opeds on Trump. But this framing, all too typical, is deeply dangerous," the scholar wrote on social media. "Imagine if Biden had given this kind of speech how they would’ve handled it. The double standard is journalistic malpractice."
