News site The Daily Beast made substantial corrections on Friday to an article about “anti-woke activist” and New College of Florida board member Christopher Rufo. The changes came shortly after Rufo publicly threatened legal action.
The corrected article, which now criticizes Rufo for his choice of “terrible allies,” originally accused him of being “open to working with racists and fascists.”
Rufo called the author “an absolute embarrassment to journalism” after “editors had to retract his key claims”:
The Daily Beast published the original article on October 6 at 4:17 AM. At 3:03 PM, Rufo took to Twitter with threats of legal action over “a false, malicious, and defamatory article”:
Rufo encouraged Twitter users to “send a polite but firm email to the Daily Beast editors demanding a correction to this false and defamatory article.”
The Daily Beast corrected the article at 5:14 PM, revising the headline from “Influential Anti-Woke Activist Is Open to Working With Racists and Fascists” to “Influential Anti-Woke Activist Is Open to Terrible Allies.”
An attorney at the firm representing Rufo suggested the corrections came to avoid substantial damages for defamation:
The Daily Beast also added an editor’s note explaining its corrections:
Editor’s Note: The headline of this story has been updated to delete that Rufo is open to working with racists and fascists, which Rufo had explicitly denied. We have updated the story accordingly and added comment from Rufo.
The Daily Beast corrected a paragraph implying Rufo silently approved of conservatives aligning with white nationalists. During a Rufo chat on Twitter Spaces, an unnamed user “floated an ear-burning idea” that “mainstream conservative movements should want to align with [a white nationalist] to ‘destroy the power of the left.'”
The Daily Beast originally reported that “at no point in the conversation did Rufo say he disagreed with the speaker’s proposal.” The corrected article notes that while “Rufo did not vocally disagree with that particular speaker’s proposal,” Rufo did “denounce white nationalist Richard Spencer” later in the conversation.
The corrected article included a lengthy statement Rufo sent after the article’s publication. In the statement, Rufo chastised The Daily Beast for mischaracterizing his views, citing his public disavowal of “right-wing racialism.”
Despite the corrections, Rufo still objected to the article:
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