Readers revolt over the ‘snarky’ royal coverage in the NY Times

THE New York Times has been hit with a fresh backlash from readers appalled at its attacks on the Royal Family.

The Left-leaning American newspaper’s latest sour article attacked the ‘hefty price tag’ of the Queen’s state funeral and mourning ceremonies, saying they would cost British taxpayers more than £5 million.

But readers hit back online, with some threatening to cancel the £14-a-month subscriptions the paper relies on.

The New York Times last week sparked controversy by

‘Anti-British propaganda’

publishing a piece by Harvard history professor Maya Jasanoff, which decried attempts to ‘romanticise’ the royals. It said: ‘The Queen helped obscure a bloody history of decolonisation whose proportions and legacies have yet to be adequately acknowledged.’

Critics of the paper’s ‘disrespectful’ stance hit back yesterday – and threatened to do so with their wallets.

Doreen Wilson wrote on Twitter: ‘Your newspaper has been unfailingly full of snark, on a story that doesn’t belong to you. Disappointing. I subscribed for five years but you’ve confirmed the wisdom of letting it go.’

Another Twitter user, Robert Corbishley, said the funeral cost per Briton was ‘less per person than the price of one copy of your “newspaper”.’

Journalist and broadcaster Andrew Neil added: ‘Amazing scoop from The New York Times reveals that Queen’s funeral will be paid out of taxation. Must be a first for any head of state anywhere. Or maybe there are no depths to which The New York Times won’t stoop in its antiBritish propaganda.’

The New York Times has published a number of attacks on British tradition in recent years – and not always with complete accuracy.

It paid British comedian Tom Walker to produce videos ridiculing his own country. As fictitious journalist Jonathan Pie, Walker called former prime minister Boris Johnson ‘a c*** of the highest order’ and claimed: ‘You can’t get in or out of the country because of airline staff shortages and queues at border control.’ The newspaper has also struggled to shake off the outdated beliefs of some Americans that Britain remains shrouded in the pea-soup fogs and austerity of the 1850s. A New York Times travel writer claimed just four years ago that he struggled to find a London restaurant menu offering alternatives to ‘porridge and boiled mutton’.