X users criticized The New York Times for its Saturday headline on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, which described him as a “hard-line cleric who made Iran a regional power.”
President Donald Trump confirmed Khamenei was killed during military strikes the United States and Israel conducted in a Saturday Truth Social post. Critics argued the NYT’s headline should have been harsher about the man who led a regime accused of sponsoring terrorism and violently suppressing protests.
NYT got the headline wrong. Let me help: Radical Islamic terrorist who murdered thousands of Americans got what he deserved.
There we go. https://t.co/Pphjcf5HOt
— Tim Sheehy (@TimSheehyMT) March 1, 2026
“NYT got the headline wrong,” Republican Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy wrote. “Let me help: Radical Islamic terrorist who murdered thousands of Americans got what he deserved.”
Below the headline, the NYT noted in its subhead that Khamenei “brutally crushed dissent at home and expanded Iran’s footprint abroad, challenging Saudi Arabia for regional dominance.” However, the NYT did not reference terrorism near the top of the piece.
“The United States and other critics labeled Tehran a sponsor of terrorism and a threat to the regional order, with a record of torture, the jailing of adversaries and persecution of minorities,” the NYT eventually wrote.
Libs of TikTok on Saturday compared the NYT’s headline on Khamenei to how it wrote about “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams in a Jan. 13 X post announcing his death.
“Breaking News: Scott Adams, whose comic strip ‘Dilbert’ was a sensation until he made racist comments on his podcast, has died at 68,” the NYT wrote at the time.
Libs of TikTok called the NYT “scum” for how it reported on the two deaths.
The NYT’s public relations X account defended the outlet in a statement to Libs of TikTok, which an NYT spokesperson also sent to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The Times’s obituaries report and reflect lives in full, illuminating why, in our judgment, they were significant,” it wrote. “We fairly and accurately include the newsworthy details of each life and death, and don’t treat them dishonestly to score points like you’re trying to do here.”
However, Libs of TikTok doubled down, calling the outlet “evil scum.”
Moreover podcast host Tara Servatius accused the NYT of being fine with Khamenei slaughtering protesters in a Sunday X post.
“Ayatollah Khamenei executed tens of thousands of innocent people for the crime of disagreeing with him,” she wrote. “The New York Times was cool with that. Do you seriously think their attitude would be different if he was a left wing ruler of America when he did it?”
Trump had warned Iran in January not to kill anti-regime protesters, including threatening action if the theocratic regime hanged demonstrators who had been arrested. While Iran reportedly did not hang any of the 800 protesters Trump referenced, Iranian forces allegedly killed thousands of others.
The Washington Post also received criticism for how it described Khamenei in its Saturday article on his death.
“With his bushy white beard and easy smile, Ayatollah Khamenei cut a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor, and he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, especially Victor Hugo’s ‘Les Misérables,’” the outlet wrote.
Furthermore, the Post faced backlash for its obituary framing the late leader of the ISIS terror group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as an “austere religious scholar” in 2019.
“Austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State dies at 48,” the full headline read.
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