It wasn't intentionally, and it happened two decades ago. I'm pretty sure, for example, that the Times gets criticised for this at least ten times as often as

It wasn't intentionally, and it happened two decades ago. I'm pretty sure, for example, that the Times gets criticised for this at least ten times as often as the Republican Party does, even though the latter was not only the origin of the lie the NYT fell for, but the actual group of people making the decision to go to war. Only Google shutting down Reader has a worse <magnitude of mistake>/<longevity of criticism> ratio.