NYT Home Page Virtually Ignores Sept. 12 DC Rally, Gives Obama MN Speech Nearly Top Billing

September 13th, 2009 11:37 AM

Not that any of this will surprise anyone, but it should go on the record nonetheless. The New York Times's home page as of its 10:15 a.m. update looked like this (click to enlarge in a separate window):

NYThomePage1015on091309

You'll note no mention of the D.C. rally yesterday that drew an estimated 1-2 million people.

You'll also note a link boxed in red to a Times story about President Obama's speech yesterday in Minnesota. More on that in a bit.

If even the low end of the D.C. rally estimate holds, it would be the largest-ever gathering in Washington not related to a presidential inauguration -- larger than the misnamed Million Man March (October 16, 1995; while others claimed almost a million were there, the National Park Service estimated 400,000), larger than Moratorium Day (November 15, 1969; Wikipedia says it had 500,000; other sources report lower numbers), and larger than the day of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (August 28, 1963; 250,000).

If the high end of the estimate holds, it would be the largest gathering of any kind in Washington, exceeding the 1.8 million claimed to have attended Barack Obama's presidential inauguration.

Scrolling further down the NYT's home page, one finally finds a mention of the rally at the third screen (click to enlarge in a separate window):

NYThomePage3rdScreen1015on091309

At last, there's a link to Jeff Zeleny's D.C. rally story. Actually, as you'll see from the red boxes, there are actually two links to it.

Then note the blue-boxed item listed first in Politics in between those two red boxes. That link goes to the very same Obama report noted earlier that is linked near the very top of the home page.

If you need to quickly explain to anyone why establishment media is dying, you need look no further than the two pictures just noted.

But if you need a third, here's a picture of the National Edition of the Times's front page today:

NYT091309frontPagePic

There is a picture below the fold, and it goes to Zeleny's story about the rally -- on a distant Section A page.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.