Website That Employs Benny Johnson Tries and Fails to Correct New York Times

The Daily Caller—an outlet which employs Benny Johnson, a guy who has been accused of plagiarism at not one but two different jobs, as a “reporter at large” —tried to out-pedantic the New York Times today. It did not go well.

The subject of the Daily Caller’s ire on this apparently snail-paced news day was a New York Times graphic which abbreviated the states of Maine and Texas in ways which were not consistent with the AP style guide.

“These Women Could Shatter Glass Ceilings in Governor’s Races,” a story about women running in governor’s races across the country, came packaged with a fancy-looking graphic right below the headline.

Unfortunately, whoever made the graphic clearly did not have knowledge of the correct abbreviations for states.

Maine was abbreviated as “Me.” and Texas was abbreviated as “Tex.”

The New York Times was likely going for standard AP style, as the rest of the abbreviations look accurate. However, AP style also dictates that Maine and Texas are two of the eight states that never get abbreviated.

The author of the post even bragged about the stir it was causing.

There was just one problem, as an “update” to the post clarified: the New York Times uses its own style guide, which directs writers to use those abbreviations.

UPDATE (2:45 PM): The New York Times’ style guide, contrary to AP style, abbreviates Maine as “Me.” and Texas as “Tex.”

In the official Splinter style guide, for what it’s worth, this would be called a “correction.”