Wolf deleted the post at the urging of New York Times foreign correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, who commented beneath it on Facebook. Callimachi, who has reported extensively on these cases, later explained on Twitter (I’ve cleaned up the abbreviations that are common Twitter shorthand), “What she fails to understand is that the kidnappings — 23 in total — have been under blackout for much of the past two years because ISIS told families of Henning, Foley, Kassig, etc., their sons would be killed if it became public.”

After deleting her post at Callimachi’s request, Wolf posted again, reiterating her earlier accusations and promising to “repost” with “new reporting.” She also posed a series of questions to the New York Times implying that the newspaper was complicit in fabricating the story. She focused her criticism on the idea that all information on the ISIS kidnappings and videos had been sourced only to SITE, which she again noted had once received a US government grant. She implied that the media had been unable or unwilling to find a second source because the entire story had been staged. (In fact, the kidnappings and murders have been reported based on dozens of sources, including Syrians in the ISIS headquarters of Raqqa and a number of fellow hostages who have been released.)

Later, Wolf scolded the New York Times for not answering her questions and accused it of failing to meet “basic j-school two source journalism.” In another post, Wolf stated, “I stand by what I wrote today” about ISIS.