Times of London Retracts Article After Mistaking Wine Importer for Former NYC Mayor
British newspaper apologizes after publishing quotes from Long Island businessman instead of Bill de Blasio in story critical of mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani
The Times of London issued an apology and retracted an article on October 29, 2025, after discovering that their reporter had interviewed a Long Island wine importer instead of former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, resulting in fabricated quotes being published about Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani one week before Election Day.
The Misidentification
The incident began when Times reporter Bevan Hurley contacted an email address containing the name “Bill DeBlasio” seeking commentary on Mamdani’s policy proposals. The recipient, Bill DeBlasio of Huntington Station, Long Island, is a 59-year-old wine importer who shares a nearly identical name with the former mayor, differing only in capitalization and spacing.
According to interviews DeBlasio gave to Semafor, he never claimed to be the former mayor. “I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor,” DeBlasio told reporters through his Ring doorbell camera while vacationing in Florida. “So I just gave him my opinion.”
DeBlasio acknowledged using ChatGPT to help compose his response to the reporter’s questions about Mamdani’s tax and spending plans. “I did some research on the proposals and I wrote down my thoughts and used ChatGPT to do a little fine-tuning,” he told the Associated Press. “Then I forgot about it and went on vacation. I never thought it would make it into the news.”
The Published Quotes
The Times of London published what they characterized as an exclusive interview with quotes attributed to the former mayor criticizing Mamdani’s policy agenda. The article quoted “de Blasio” as saying: “In my view, the math doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, and the political hurdles are substantial.”
These quotes were particularly newsworthy because the real Bill de Blasio has been a vocal supporter of Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and a longtime political rival of Andrew Cuomo, one of Mamdani’s opponents in the race. The apparent reversal of support would have represented a significant development in the New York City mayoral election.
Rapid Response and Retraction
The actual former mayor quickly responded on social media platform X after being alerted to the article. “I want to be 100% clear: The story in the Times of London is entirely false and fabricated,” de Blasio wrote. “It was just brought to my attention and I’m appalled. I never spoke to that reporter and never said those things. Those quotes aren’t mine, don’t reflect my views.”
In a follow-up post, de Blasio added: “It is an absolute violation of journalistic ethics. The truth is I fully support [Mamdani] and believe his vision is both necessary and achievable.”
The Times of London removed the article approximately two hours after publication and issued a statement: “The Times has apologized to Bill de Blasio and removed the article immediately after discovering that our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor.”
Editorial Response
Ian Brunskill, an associate editor at The Times, sent an internal email to the newsroom with the subject line “Fake (Times) news/must read,” according to reports from Deadline. In the message, Brunskill called the incident “humiliating” and noted it had done “serious damage to our reputation.”
“This could have been avoided by good practice and due diligence,” Brunskill wrote, according to the leaked email. “We should have been on our guard. We should have tried much harder to speak to the people concerned.”
The email also referenced a separate recent incident involving an AI-generated case study about a fake royal household employee that the newspaper had published, indicating a pattern of verification failures.
Political Fallout
Before the article was retracted, campaign representatives for Andrew Cuomo shared the fabricated quotes on social media, using them to suggest that even Mamdani’s supporters were questioning his policy proposals. The rapid spread of the false information during the final week of the mayoral campaign raised concerns about the potential impact on voters.
The fabricated story was also initially picked up by the New York Post, another News Corp publication, before being corrected. Both The Times of London and the New York Post are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate.
According to sources cited by Semafor, there had been internal pressure at The Times for more critical coverage of Mamdani’s campaign, allegedly driven by Margi Conklin, the newspaper’s U.S. Director of Content and a veteran of the New York Post and The Free Press.
The Wine Importer’s Perspective
Bill DeBlasio told reporters he has been receiving emails intended for the former mayor for over a decade due to their similar names. He said he occasionally responds to these misdirected messages “for fun,” including sometimes telling people complaining about city services to handle problems themselves.
DeBlasio disputes The Times’ characterization that he was “falsely claiming” to be the former mayor or acting as an “impersonator.” He maintains that he simply answered questions sent to his email address under his own name and that the reporter made assumptions about his identity.
“I could have corrected him,” DeBlasio acknowledged to Semafor. “Instead, he played along.” He described the journalism as “lazy” but noted that the newspaper had quoted him accurately – they simply failed to verify who they were quoting.
The two men with nearly identical names actually met once at a 2016 New York Mets playoff game. DeBlasio recalled that security guards, amused by the coincidence, arranged the meeting, and the former mayor apologized for the misdirected hate mail.
DeBlasio, who describes his politics as “middle of the road” conservative, told reporters he would likely support Cuomo if he were eligible to vote in New York City.
Verification Failures
The incident highlights several breakdowns in standard journalistic verification practices. The two Bills spell their surnames differently – the former mayor uses lowercase “d” with a space (“de Blasio”) while the wine importer uses uppercase “D” with no space (“DeBlasio”). This orthographic difference alone could have prompted further verification.
Additionally, the interview was conducted entirely via email, with no phone or video call to confirm the source’s identity. The reporter apparently did not attempt to reach de Blasio through official channels, campaign contacts, or his known representatives.
The use of ChatGPT to generate the critical quotes raises additional concerns about the authenticity of digital communications and the challenges journalists face in verifying sources in an era of artificial intelligence.
Industry Response
Journalism experts and media critics have cited the incident as emblematic of broader problems in contemporary news media, including pressure to publish quickly, insufficient fact-checking resources, and confirmation bias in pursuing stories that fit predetermined narratives.
The incident occurred during a particularly sensitive period in the New York City mayoral race, with Election Day scheduled for November 5, 2025. Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic socialist and New York State Assembly member, has been leading in polls with a platform that includes free public transportation, universal childcare, and rent stabilization funded by higher taxes on wealthy residents.
Implications for Media Credibility
The Times of London, founded in 1785, is one of Britain’s most established newspapers and has historically been considered a publication of record. The incident represents a significant credibility crisis for the outlet, particularly coming amid ongoing debates about media trustworthiness and the spread of misinformation.
The involvement of AI-generated content in the fabricated quotes adds another dimension to concerns about how artificial intelligence tools are being used in communications with journalists and the challenges newsrooms face in detecting such content.
Former Mayor de Blasio appeared on CNN following the incident, describing the experience as feeling like “the ultimate disempowerment” to have words falsely attributed to him during a crucial moment in his endorsed candidate’s campaign.
Aftermath
In the wake of the revelation, both Bill de Blasio and Bill DeBlasio appeared together in a joint CNN interview, discussing the mix-up with humor while acknowledging the serious implications for journalism and political discourse.
The Times of London has not announced specific changes to its editorial processes in response to the incident, though Brunskill’s internal email suggested the need for stricter verification protocols.
For Mamdani’s campaign, the incident ultimately generated significant publicity while demonstrating what his supporters characterized as establishment media’s eagerness to publish negative stories about progressive candidates without proper verification.
The episode serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of basic journalistic practices in an era of rapid publication cycles and digital communication, where the pressure to break news quickly can override fundamental verification steps that distinguish journalism from rumor.
