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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 Thursday night.
Instead, both Williams and Gay marveled on air in reaction to a Twitter user’s post about Mike Bloomberg’s campaign spending.
Trouble is, the post had gotten the math all wrong – yet neither Williams nor Gay seemed to notice.
The Super Tuesday evening post, 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.
One Twitter user who took notice of the bad math was writer Michael Salfino of New Jersey.
“What is wrong with these people?” Salfino wrote. “This would be right here if there were 327 people in the US. And this reflects horribly on the NY Times too. Can someone stop and think for two seconds?”
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Neither Williams nor Gay appeared to acknowledge their tag-team faux pas on social media as of early Friday.
As for the author of the original post, her account was set to private — and in her Twitter bio she wrote: “I know, I’m bad at math.”
