New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd admitted on Wednesday that she "screwed up" when she misquoted the wife of New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio.
Dowd quoted Chirlane McCray criticizing de Blasio's opponent Christine Quinn as "not accessible ... She's not the kind of person I feel I can go up to and talk to about issues like taking care of children at a young age and paid sick leave." Quinn retaliated, suggesting that
McCray's full statement, however, was different:
“Well, I am a woman, and she is not speaking to the issues I care about and I think a lot of women feel the same way. I don’t see her speaking to the concerns of women who have to take care of children at a young age or send them to school and after school, paid sick days, workplace, she is not speaking to any of those issues. What can I say? And she is not accessible, she is not the kind of person who you can talk to and go up to and have a conversation with about those things, and I suspect that other women feel the same thing I’m feeling.”
The de Blasio campaign released the full quote, prompting the Times to issue a correction for Dowd's piece. "An earlier version of this column incorrectly quoted a response by Chirlane McCray, the wife of Bill de Blasio to a question about Christine Quinn. The column has been updated to reflect the full response," the note read.
In an interview with Politico, Dowd said she believed "the substance is the same, but the quote should be exact," but acknowledged that she had made a mistake. She attributed it to being in a "noisy coffee shop" and using a tape recorder that didn't pick everything up. "I screwed up," she said, adding that she has apologized to both campaigns.
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