I was at the talk at TED and was blown away by what he said did. I spoke to some other folks at ITP and they said that he didn't actually train the crows in the way he very explicitly said he did during his TED talk.
He very clearly gave the impression that he had trained the crows following all the steps described in his talk.
I could be wrong about the details, but it certainly wasn't the NYT's fault. They reported it as he described it.
I saw this too and was wondering what was new in the talk. It looks like he downloaded the source, swapped in a TED logo, and took credit. After it came out that the talk about training crows was faked too, TED is looking pretty bad IMHO.
He very clearly gave the impression that he had trained the crows following all the steps described in his talk.
I could be wrong about the details, but it certainly wasn't the NYT's fault. They reported it as he described it.