NPR has apologized after boosting the Media Matters lie that National Review’s Rich Lowry used a racial slur on Megyn Kelly’s show when he fumbled over the words “migrants” and “immigrants,” making some launch the false accusation that he said the n-word in a September 15 show with Kelly.

The outlet came out with a story dedicated to apologizing for originally headlining, “Conservative editor-in-chief appears to use racial slur to refer to Haitian migrants” after Lowry, who even addressed the word mix-up prior to the story getting drafted. The outlet, after recognizing its mistake, changed the headline to “Conservative editor-in-chief says mispronunciation led to accusations of using slur.”

The reporter who wrote the original story, C. Mandler, was called out in the apology from NPR’s public editor, Kelly McBride, in the apology. Mandler’s LinkedIn indicates that the writer identifies as non-binary.

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One of the first to cite the clip and claim that Lowry was saying the slur was Madeline Peltz, the director of the rapid response team for Media Matters. She posted the clip, saying, “Having a hard time coming to any conclusion besides the obvious one about what Rich Lowry catches himself blurting out here.” […]