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Journalism of Courage
The New York Times has found itself in the middle of a controversy after publishing a crossword that social media users have deemed to be resembling a swastika, the symbol appropriated by the Nazi Party and neo-Nazis. Netizens are slamming The New York Times for publishing this crossword on the first day of Hanukkah, a Jewish festival.
The crossword, published by NYT on December 18, was titled ‘Some Theme’s Missing’ and it was concocted by Ryan McCarty, who has formulated 22 other puzzles for the paper, the New York Post reported.
“This is the New York Times crossword puzzle on the first day of Hanukka – in the shape of a swastika. They are not a newspaper. They are disgusting,” a netizen tweeted.
“I’m not saying the New York Times is antisemitic… I’m just saying they kicked off Hannukah with a swastika shaped crossword puzzle,” said another.
“A few years ago, the New York Times upset people by publishing a crossword that looked vaguely like a swastika. To rectify this, they published a new crossword today that looks exactly like a swastika,” another netizen posted.
The New York Times responded to the controversy and said that it was a “common crossword design”. Talking to DailyMail.com, a spokesperson for the paper said, “This is a common crossword design: Many open grids in crosswords have a similar spiral pattern because of the rules around rotational symmetry and black squares.”
This is not the first time The New York Times has been called out for a questionable crossword puzzle design. It happened in 2017 as well and the paper had even addressed it that time.
