TimesWatch

NYT's Stelter Berates Fox for Daring to Report on Deadly Texas Blast, Not Obama's Angry Gun Remarks
By Clay Waters | April 19, 2013 | 12:33 PM EDT

Brian Stelter, media reporter for the New York Times, foisted his peculiar news judgment on Fox News, weighing President Obama's petulant remarks after the defeat of his gun control plans as more newsworthy than a fire at a Texas fertilizer plant that has killed at least 12 people and injured up to 200.

Stelter also sounded offended that Fox cut off Obama's live Rose Garden remarks, in his piece on the front of Friday's Business section: "At Fox News, Less Attention Paid to Gun Debate Than Elsewhere."

NY Times Follows Up Front-Page Accusations of NYPD Racial Profiling With Undermining -- on Page 25
By Clay Waters | April 18, 2013 | 4:29 PM EDT

The New York Times' claims of racially motivated "stop and frisk" procedures by the NYPD are disintegrating, but casual Times readers would never know it.

Thursday's paper brought a followup by reporter Joseph Goldstein's to his accusatory front-page story of March 21 suggesting that racial profiling plays a major part of the police's "stop and frisk" crime-fighting tactics in unsafe neighborhoods. The story was criticized as overstated by the paper's liberal-leaning Public Editor.

NY Times, Not Taking Defeat of 'Gun Safety' Well, Faults 'Gun Lobby's' 'Disputed Talking Points'
By Clay Waters | April 18, 2013 | 2:27 PM EDT

The New York Times led Thursday's edition with the Senate defeat of President Obama's gun control proposals in a series of procedural votes, including one on expanding background checks that Democrats had hoped would pass. The front page featured a photo of an angry Obama in the Rose Garden after his quest for more gun control laws in the wake of Sandy Hook came up short: "Gun Control Drive Blocked In Senate; Obama, In Defeat, Sees 'Shameful Day.'"

The Times, which has avidly pushed "gun safety" measures since the massacre, portrayed it as a "search for solutions to the violence" tragically cut short. Jonathan Weisman:

NY Times Doesn't Let 'Costly' Funeral Halt Criticism of 'Deeply Polarizing...Divisive' Thatcher
By Clay Waters | April 17, 2013 | 2:19 PM EDT

The New York Times marked the day of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's funeral with disrespect, with London bureau chief John Burns reporting from one of the last places on earth likely to offer sympathetic tribute to the prime minister who broke the left-wing coal miners' union: A mining town in the middle of England.

And the paper's post-funeral story today offered left-wing "complaints about its cost and appropriateness" of the funeral sandwiched around accounts of ghoulish lefty celebrations of Thatcher's passing.

NYT Hypes 'Nonpartisan' Report on Torture Under Bush -- From 'Ardent Democrat' Who Avoided His Inaugural
By Clay Waters | April 16, 2013 | 5:42 PM EDT

On the day after terrorism struck the Boston Marathon, the New York Times chose a different kind of terror-related story to join it on the front page, from intelligence reporter Scott Shane: "U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes."

Shane and his headline writer harped on the "nonpartisan" nature of the Constitution Project, despite the fact that it clearly leans left, as a scan of the group's priorities (not to mention the personal remarks of its very own president in the Times itself) reveals.

NY Times Finally Sends Reporter to Gosnell Infanticide Trial, Cites 'Experts' Denying Cover-Up
By Clay Waters | April 16, 2013 | 2:02 PM EDT

A mere month after the trial began, the New York Times has, under pressure, sent a reporter to Philadelphia to cover the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell on charges of mass infanticide.

Trip Gabriel did indeed file from Philadelphia on Tuesday, "Online Furor Draws Press to Abortion Doctor's Trial." But his location was mostly irrelevant, as he only pinned two and a half paragraphs from what happened in court on Monday to the end of his report. Most of the story was a recap of the trial's "grisly details," accusations from "conservatives" that the media was ignoring the story, and defenses from unlabeled liberal media "experts" denying a coverup.

Whose 'Embarrassment' Is Secret Taping of Sen. McConnell? NYT Says It's His, WP Says Left-Wing PAC
By Clay Waters | April 16, 2013 | 8:11 AM EDT

At least one major paper is taking seriously the illicit taping of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's strategy session by a left-wing Democratic PAC, which then found its way into the left-wing magazine Mother Jones.

The magazine's first foray into hidden video struck left-wing gold -- capturing candidate Mitt Romney's claim at a fundraiser about the "47 percent" who would vote for Obama because they were dependent on government. But this new clip, in which McConnell's staff discusses a potential Democratic opponent, actress Ashley Judd, seems to have backfired on the magazine and the liberal PAC Progress Kentucky, who provided the clip, both of which are in legal hot water.

But New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel saw only embarrassment on Sen. McConnell's side in his Friday account, buried under an innocuous headline on page 14, "McConnell Recording Is Linked To a PAC."

New York Times Maintains Blackout on Philadelphia Abortionist Gosnell's Trial on Infanticide
By Clay Waters | April 15, 2013 | 2:17 PM EDT

Kermit Gosnell is the late-term abortion doctor in Philadelphia, on trial for infanticide in the gruesome killing of seven babies. The day after his trial began March 18 (as Tom Blumer noted at Newsbusters) Jon Hurdle at the New York Times opened by telling readers that "In opening statements in court on Monday, prosecutors charged that a doctor who operated a women’s health clinic here killed seven viable fetuses..."

Fetuses? The Times more accurately described it in a January 2011 brief, when Gosnell was first charged with murder:

NY Times' Long, Sympathetic Profile of Disgraced Anthony Weiner Having Intended Effect
By Clay Waters | April 11, 2013 | 3:29 PM EDT

The cover story of the upcoming New York Times Sunday magazine is independent journalist Jonathan Van Meter's 8,000-word sympathetic profile-slash-therapy session for disgraced New York City former congressman Anthony Weiner, he of explicit Twitter photo infamy. Weiner's extended interview is having its intended effect, as the networks promote his political rehabilitation.

But even some liberal journalists think Van Meter left a lot out of his cover story. And conservative blogger Ace of Spades' timeline of the summer 2011 scandal suggests Van Meter is shielding Weiner by tossing details of the scandal down the media memory hole while ignoring the indispensable role played by the late Andrew Breitbart:

New York Times Hypes 'Several Tens of Thousands of Immigrants' in DC Rally, Escaping the 'Shadows'
By Clay Waters | April 11, 2013 | 3:19 PM EDT

The New York Times continued its push for immigration "reform" in Thursday's edition. The front of the National section included a page-width photo of "tens of thousands of immigrants, Latinos, union members, gay rights and other advocates" who rallied at the Capitol Wednesday.

Reporters Julia Preston and Ashley Parker, among the most slanted on the paper's staff, used even higher figures for the march while covering the so-called Group of 8's deal on an immigration amnesty bill, "Bipartisan Senators’ Group Reaches Deal on Immigration Bill." The phrasing was awkward, as vagueness (there are no official crowd estimates) grasped for specificity: "several tens of thousands of immigrants..."

NYT's Lead Story Foresees 'Egg-on-the-Face Moment' for Conservatives if Gun Bill Gains Support
By Clay Waters | April 10, 2013 | 4:01 PM EDT

Wednesday's New York Times's lead story by Jennifer Steinhauer and Jonathan Weisman, "Threat To Block Debate On Guns Appears To Fade – Reid Sets Senate Vote – Some G.O.P. Senators Reject Filibuster, but Hurdles Remain," hyped the prospects of Obama's gun-control legislation while foreseeing a possible "egg-on-the-face moment" for conservatives who tried to filibuster the legislation.

NY Times Critic Happy Country Music Finally Shedding Its Conservatism, Showing 'Intellectual...Range'
By Clay Waters | April 10, 2013 | 2:30 PM EDT

Music critic Jon Caramanica reviewed country star Brad Paisley's latest album "Wheelhouse," in "Taking Country Less Conservative" for the Arts section of Wednesday's New York Times. Caramanica gave Paisley backhanded compliments for "openmindedness" while insulting the genre of country music as rigidly conservative (Caramanica has previously given backhanded praised to country music itself, for not being as homophobic as some people think).

These are country music’s postmilitarization years. A decade ago, there were songs about strong soldiers and a just war, weeping soldiers and unimpeachable ideology -- the genre latched onto the political moment and held fast like a remora.