BREAKING NEWS – New York City, New York – If someone had simply stopped and double-checked some math, they might have saved MSNBC’s Brian Williams and New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay some embarrassment.
The Super Tuesday evening post last week, now deleted, said: “Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. population is 327 million. He could have given each American $1 million and still have money left over, I feel like a $1 million check would be life-changing for people. Yet he wasted it all on ads and STILL LOST.”
“It’s an incredible way of putting it,” Williams gushed.
“It’s an incredible way of putting it. It’s true,” Gay agreed.
In reality, however, had Bloomberg divvied his advertising dollars among all Americans, the per-capita cash-out would have been more like $1.53 per person – not even enough to take a ride on New York City’s subway.
Williams and Gay doubled down on their extremely flawed math on a joint letter in the NY Times. “We still believe that even $1.53 can be life changing. Think about the homeless person that needs to buy a hamburger or a small order of fries to avoid starving to death. Or think about the wino that needs to buy the cheapest wine sold so he or she can guzzle it down, which gives them the alcohol induced courage to stagger to street corners and beg people for money. So, was our math off? Well that’s a matter of opinion.”