‘New York Times’ Pulls Its Own Poll On Christine Blasey Ford Testimony

The New York Times’ opinion page account released a poll on Thursday asking Twitter users if they believe the testimony provided by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. In a well-publicized hearing, Ford told her story on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the world, regarding the sexual assault allegations she has leveled against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Ford’s testimony began around 10:30 a.m. and was conducted in five-minute intervals. Each member of the Senate Judiciary Committee was allowed to ask questions or otherwise make comments for five minutes each. Most of the Republican Senators chose to yield their time to the professional prosecutor hired specifically for this hearing, who questioned Ford about the events surrounding the alleged assault.

The testimony she provided was a highly-watched event, and sparked many to share their own stories of sexual assault through social media and other channels, as reported by Inquisitr on Thursday.

“Do you find her testimony credible?” the poll asked, according to Politico. Users then had a choice between the options “Yes,” “No,” or “Unsure.”

But some never got the chance to weigh in, as the New York Times backpedaled on the poll pretty quickly. Later, NYT released a brief statement through Twitter.

“We’re sorry for this tweet. In retrospect, a Twitter poll is insensitive in light of the gravity of this hearing. We’ve deleted it.”

We're sorry for this tweet. In retrospect, a Twitter poll is insensitive in light of the gravity of this hearing. We've deleted it. pic.twitter.com/4CqRhkuCat

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) September 27, 2018

“We also recognize that asking only about Dr. Blasey’s credibility was inappropriate. We had intended to tweet a second poll about Judge Kavanaugh’s credibility this afternoon,” the NYT added in a later tweet.

Since Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony was punctuated with the oft-repeated phrase “I like beer” and contained some extremely contentious back-and-forths between him and several Democratic Senators, a NYT poll is hardly the worst thing that happened during the hearing, every minute of which was shown live on multiple news networks.

But the quick turnaround on the part of the New York Times illustrates a lot of the problems with the hearing and all that has unfolded in the last two weeks. The general awkwardness of the questioning and the bizarre way the hearing unfolded showed that many people still don’t know how to talk about sexual assault.

According to The Blaze, the New York Times pulled the poll after a Twitter backlash resulted soon after it was posted.

The New York Times hasn’t released any new polls, and did not release a poll asking Twitter users to vote on Kavanaugh’s credibility during his testimony, which followed Ford’s Thursday afternoon.