Stuttering Foundation Corrects New York Times Errors About Stuttering with New Blog by Speech-Language Pathologist Katie Gore

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Contact: Greg Wilson
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Memphis, Tenn. (August 28, 2020) — In response to a “general information piece” in the New York Times (“What to Know About Stuttering,”) the Stuttering Foundation published a blog by Katie Gore, MA, CCC-SLP, on its website on Aug. 24. In it, Ms. Gore takes issue with several points in the article by Benedict Carey, a science reporter with the Times since 2004.

Inspired by Brayden Harrington, the 13-year-old boy who spoke opening about his stutter on national television during the Democratic National Convention, Ms. Gore was troubled by a Times article published the following day. She contends that the article is not what you should know about stuttering and that it is both factually incorrect and insensitive. In her critique and fact-check, Ms. Gore shared several concerns that resonated within the stuttering community, including the author’s use of bad science and mischaracterizations of treatment.

“If the NYT really, truly wanted to show support for PWS and brave kids like Brayden, I would expect editors to put in the time, effort, and money to hire a writer who at minimum knows some actual facts about stuttering. Better yet, have an actual person who stutters tell the world ‘What to Know About Stuttering,’” she wrote.

Find Katie Gore’s blog post at https://www.stutteringhelp.org/blog/fact-checking-new-york-times-about-stuttering.

About the Stuttering Foundation

Malcolm Fraser, a successful businessman who struggled with stuttering, established and endowed the nonprofit Stuttering Foundation in 1947. The Foundation provides free online resources at StutteringHelp.org for people who stutter and their families as well as support for research into the causes of stuttering. For more information, visit www.StutteringHelp.org.

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