New York Times Receive Some Very Passionate Responses To Their Berkeley Article

As people across the world came to terms with the terrible tragedy that occurred in the early hours of a Californian Tuesday morning in Berkeley, the New York Times published an insensitive article in which labelled the J1 programme an "embarrassment to Ireland". The New York Times has since issued two apologies for the huge backlash that it has faced.

The New York Times is widely regarded as a respected paper around the world, and their insensitive comments is one of the reasons for such a public response. It has lead to some high-profile people writing to the newspaper to express their complaints at the article.

Former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, was one such figure and her letter to the newspaper was published in the Irish Times.

Today in Ireland we are hanging our heads in shock and sorrow at the needless deaths of six of our brightest and best young adults and the serious injuries to others.

Today the New York Times should be hanging its head in shame at how outrageously and without the remotest evidence it has rushed to judgment on those deaths.

I was a J-1 visa student in California over forty years ago.

Tens of thousands of Irish J-1 students have spent happy summers there over the years since.

By far the vast majority have been a credit to Ireland and only the very tiniest minority have not.

Yet within hours of the most appalling tragedy in the history of the J-1 visa program, when the one salient fact to speak for itself is the ludicrous collapse of a fourth floor balcony in a relatively new building, New York Times journalists reached for the lazy tabloid stereotype and heaped deliberate injustice on top of the most awful grief.

Shame on you.

Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland, 1997-2011; J-1 visa student in San Francisco summer of 1971

Meanwhile, journalist and DCU lecturer Colum Kenny was also among those to express their disapproval of the article:

Superb letter from my former lecturer, Colum Kenny, in today’s @NYTimes #Berkeley pic.twitter.com/qXDuYDpc9w

— Helen O'Rahilly 🇮🇪🏳️‍🌈🇪🇺 (@HelenORahilly) June 17, 2015