If you haven’t been keeping up on the latest controversies, here is one that is sure to shock you. The New York Times made a horrific error, but the 2 opposing questions being asked are “Was it on purpose?” or “Was it an accident?”. This article should help you form an educated opinion on this situation if you don’t already have one.

On Sunday, December 18th, the first night of Hanukkah, the New York Times made an awfully shaped crossword. Many claim that when looking at this crossword that it is in the shape of a swastika, and that the New York Times is being anti-semitic. Others brush off the idea of it being a swastika because “the New York Times wouldn’t do such a thing”, well, sorry to burst your bubble, but they did.

To make it even more clear that this was an attack on Jewish people, to describe one of the words for the crossword, they said “Style of column at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate”. To give you a little history lesson, during World War II, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate was covered with swastikas.

The New York Times continues to not take accountability for their actions, and this is well pictured in their response about the crossword in question. Executive director of communications for the New York Times claims that this crossword “- is a common crossword design”. If this were the truth, there wouldn’t be so much commotion over this particular crossword.

Enough of the spurring facts. What are other peoples opinions on this horrific mistake done by the New York Times? To find my answers, I interviewed two CCA staff and this is what they said.

Amanda Okopski has strong feelings about this topic and says the following ”I don’t have a reason to believe it was intentional” and “Unfortunate but it already happened once, so … yeah”. Okopski feels that this crossword made by the New York Times was not intentional, but that it is surely a coincidence, as she claims, the same mistake was made in 2017. She also states “ – the New York Times does not have an anti-semitic message.”. Okopski believes that just because this mistake was made by the New York Times, it doesn’t make them anti-semtic or make them have an anti-semitic message.

Jesi Morris says “It’s pretty upsetting…” and that “The fact that it was published during Hanukkah is even worse.”. As you can see this situation made many people including Morris, upset not only that they posted this crossword, but that they were not able to catch the mistake before publishing it. Morris has been a subscriber to the New York Time and she hopes “- that the constructor of the crossword made it without even realizing the shape.”. She feels like that if the company had noticed this before publishing the crossword, that this crossword would not have been published. As a big publishing company, she feels they would not do this intentionally to just receive bad press.

Receiving such a backlash over this issue, the New York Times has still not taken responsibility for their actions, and it has been over a month, so the actuality of that happening is low. Making a similar coincidence like this in the past, will you continue to respect the New York Times after this whole ordeal?