Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, made the following announcement today:

Yesterday our counsel sent a letter to The New York Times demanding a retraction. We took this action because their article was—and remains—defamatory.

I commented on the original version of the article in this thread.

In response, the NY Times published an update. Our founder Adam Ford commented on the updated version here.

The update was no better than the original. We have not, in fact, feuded with Snopes as to whether we publish satire or misinformation. Snopes retracted that insinuation with an editors' note saying it was never their intent to call our motives into question.

It's therefore misleading and malicious to characterize that incident as a feud, as if Snopes ever openly stood by the claim that we are misinformation and not satire.

These mischaracterizations from the Times are nothing new. Previously, Times reporter Kevin Roose wrote a defamatory piece that claimed we "capitalize on confusion" and that we have a "habit of skirting the line between misinformation and satire," whatever that means.

But they know better. In fact, Roose himself contradicted the title of his own piece by acknowledging in his conclusion that, "The Babylon Bee is not a covert disinformation operation disguised as a right-wing satire site, and is in fact trying to do comedy."

For better or worse, the NY Times is considered a "reliable source." We cannot stand idly by as they act with malice to misrepresent us in ways that jeopardize our business.

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