The American newspaper, New York Times garnered significant backlash for their crossword puzzle published on Sunday (December 18) as it bore an uncanny resemblance to the Nazi symbol, ‘Hakenkreuz’ (which means hooked cross in German). Furthermore, this is not the first time such an incident has taken place, as in 2017, another design of the Nazi symbol was seen for their daily crossword puzzle.
Hundreds took to social media including Twitter and also pointed out the inopportune timing as it was published on the first day of the Jewish festival of lights Hanukkah. Meanwhile, the New York Times is yet to respond to the incident.
In a follow-up tweet, Edwards also pointed out how “So far not one mainstream media outlet has reported on this.”
Former United States President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. also took to the microblogging platform and called the incident, “Disgusting!”.
Disgusting! Only the New York Times would get Chanukah going with this is the crossword puzzle. Imagine what they would do to someone who did this and was not ideologically aligned with them? I’ll give them the same benefit of the doubt they would give those people… EXACTLY ZERO pic.twitter.com/eZHr0SQbT4
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 18, 2022
Some users also said that they did not believe it till they saw the copy for themselves.
Other people have pointed out that the @nytimes crossword has an interesting layout this week. I thought, “There’s no way this actually made it to print.” I had just bought the print copy… and we’ll shit. I did nahtsee that coming. (This is real, I just took the photo) pic.twitter.com/j7OPp3UDyr
— Zach D Roberts – Photojournalist for hire (@zdroberts) December 18, 2022
I had to look it up because I thought there was no way in hell it was real.
This is the design of today’s New York Times crossword puzzle. It’s also the start of Hanukkah.
Someone needs to be held accountable. pic.twitter.com/2cT532pmdw
— Destry (@DestryBrod) December 19, 2022
Many Twitter users also pointed questioned how did editors or staff not notice the error as one user wrote, “How do you go through multiple layers of editing without picking up on that?”.
Another person wrote, “Count me in as one of the many commenters who immediately saw the swastika…It would be good if the puzzle editors addressed this and someone takes responsibility. Who cares if it was ‘unintentional’? Isn’t that what editors are for?”
Several social media users also pointed out how this is the third time this has happened as a similar first incident reportedly took place in 2014 and again in 2017. At the time, the NYT had dismissed it saying it was not intentional. Meanwhile, some people are responding to the old tweet.
Yes, hi. It’s NOT a swastika. Honest to God. No one sits down to make a crossword puzzle and says, “Hey! You know what would look cool?”
— New York Times Games (@NYTGames) October 28, 2017
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