Serena Williams calls out New York Times after being mistaken with her sister Venus: ‘You can do better’

Serena Williams is speaking out after a new article published by The New York Times, used a photo of her sister Venus Williams, with a story that only referenced Serena, titled “Tennis Star’s Venture Firm Has Raised $111 Million.”

And while The Times has apologized since the incident and the correct photo was used in the digital version, the article was published in the print version with an incorrect photo of the Tennis star.

Serena took to Twitter to share her thoughts after reading a copy of the article accompanied with the photo, stating, “No matter how far we come, we get reminded that it’s not enough,” receiving over 37.000 likes and over 8,000 retweets.

She continued, “This is why I raised $111M for @serenaventures. To support the founders who are overlooked by engrained systems woefully unaware of their biases. Because even I am overlooked.” The athlete and entrepreneur concluded, “You can do better, @nytimes.”

The newspaper apologized for the confusion, writing on Twitter, “This was our mistake,” explaining that ”It was due to an error when selecting photos for the print edition, and it did not appear online,“ adding, ”A correction will appear in tomorrow’s paper.”

© GettyImages

There have been similar mistakes over the years made by major news outlets, incorrectly identifying Black celebrities, singers, actors and athletes. Most recently, NBC Sports apologized after showing Mickey Guyton as Jhené Aiko.

In 2014 KTLA interviewed Samuel L. Jackson, misidentifying him as Laurence Fishburne, and in 2018, Fox News apologized after using a photo of Patti LaBelle in a tribute to Aretha Franklin.