On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, New York Times political reporters Jeff Zeleny (pictured) and Jim Rutenberg loaded up on crude anti-business stereotypes that went beyond even what front-runner Mitt Romney's GOP rivals were saying, in Tuesday’s “On Primary Eve, Rivals Try to Put Romney on Defensive.” (This version is lightly updated from the print version in Tuesday’s newspaper.)
Jeff Zeleny
By Clay Waters | January 5, 2012 | 2:56 PM EST
Thursday’s lead story on the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses, “Romney Showing Financial Muscle For Next Round,” found New York Times reporters Jim Rutenberg (pictured) and Jeff Zeleny a little label-happy in Manchester, New Hampshire, using twelve variations on the “conservative” label in a 1,236-word story.
By contrast, back in 2008, the Times’s Michael Powell actually called the liberal Gov. Michael Dukakis a “pragmatist” and ultra-liberal politicians Sen. Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson “populists,” while calling Sen. Hillary Clinton a “liberal pragmatist” a grand total of once. In the same story, Sen. John Edwards was described as having wrapped himself in a “populist cloak.”
By Matt Hadro | December 30, 2011 | 11:45 AM EST
Reporting on the campaigns in Iowa on Friday's Early Show, Times political correspondent Jeff Zeleny belittled candidate Michele Bachmann as "a little bit combustible and volatile."
Zeleny added that "Anyone knows what she could do," in response to CBS anchor Jeff Glor's question about the potential for a candidate to do something before the Iowa Caucus to change the GOP race.
By Clay Waters | December 8, 2011 | 3:49 PM EST
Thursday’s New York Times front-page campaign story by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg prominently featured Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod frankly discussing how the party plans to influence the GOP primary by pitting Newt Gingrich (himself a "juicy target") against Mitt Romney: “Democrats See 2-Horse Race, Adding Whip.” It’s the kind of early White House attacks the Times once disapproved of, at least when done by Republican President George W. Bush.
By Clay Waters | November 17, 2011 | 7:24 AM EST
New York Times political reporters Jeff Zeleny (pictured) and Jim Rutenberg teamed up on Tuesday for a preview of the possible presidential head-to-head matchup Obama vs. Mitt Romney: “As the Primary Campaign Grinds On, Romney’s Team Prepares for Obama.” But they felt the need to put a metaphorical finger on the scale with a negative description of the GOP.
By Matthew Balan | November 10, 2011 | 1:44 PM EST
Mark McKinnon, a regular contributor to the liberal Daily Beast website, which owns Newsweek magazine, made a morbid gaffe as he commented on Texas Governor Rick Perry's stumble during the November 9 Republican presidential debate on CNBC. The New York Times on Wednesday quoted McKinnon labeling Perry's brain freeze as the "human equivalent of shuttle Challenger."
Times writers Jeff Zeleny and Ashley Parker cited the Democrat, who once served as an aide to former President George W. Bush, as an example of how "Republican operatives almost uniformly declared it [Perry's gaffe] as a sign of great trouble for his candidacy."
By Clay Waters | October 26, 2011 | 3:41 PM EDT
“Almost half of the public” thinks the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement accurately reflects the views of Americans, claims the New York Times in Wednesday’s off-lead,
“New Poll Finds A Deep Distrust of Government – Anxiety Over Economy – Concentration of Wealth Seen as Key Issue in a Volatile Time.”
Jeff Zeleny and Megan Thee-Brenan played OWS approval high, in paragraph three.
By Brent Baker | August 22, 2011 | 3:29 AM EDT
President Barack Obama continues to benefit from a fawning media of which past Presidents could only dream, yet on Sunday’s This Week two journalists fretted he’s not getting enough credit for his accomplishments, a lack of recognition they blamed on his staff’s poor public relations efforts.
Since he’s taken office, FBN’s Liz Claman asserted, “almost every sector in the S&P is up double digit percentages” and “this is also the President under whom we got Osama bin Laden. Those two things are not getting him any gravitas at the moment.” So, she despaired, “whoever’s running PR for him needs to work on that part of it.” (video below)
NY Times' Zeleny: 'Both Sides' 'Bruised' in Debt Ceiling Deal; Only Conservatives 'Intractable' in Debate
By Ken Shepherd | August 1, 2011 | 3:07 PM EDT In a front-page “news analysis” piece this morning, Times national political correspondent Jeff Zeleny pronounced that “After a Protracted Fight, Both Sides Emerge Bruised.”
Yet Zeleny’s analysis was chock full of the typical liberal bias slant that puffs up President Obama, slams the Tea Party as “intractable” and ignores the partisanship of liberal Senate members, particularly Harry Reid (emphasis mine):
By Clay Waters | June 28, 2011 | 4:08 PM EDT
New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny was with Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann in Waterloo, Iowa, at the official launching of her presidential campaign for Tuesday’s “Bachmann Opens Campaign as Expectations Grow.” But Zeleny concluded his mostly balanced story with a reference to Bachmann’s latest in a “string of gaffes” – her mistaken claim that Western movie star John Wayne had been born in Waterloo, Iowa (though his parents met there).
Yet the Times has totally ignored a far more by President Obama, who wrongly claimed in a speech he gave June 23 to the Army's 10th Mountain Division that he had awarded a Medal of Honor to a living soldier. Jared Monti had actually had been killed in Afghanistan in 2006 and had been bestowed the honor posthumously. Obama apologized to the family.
Reporter Jackie Calmes even filed an online report from Fort Drum, in upstate New York, but failed to note the flub.
By Clay Waters | June 20, 2011 | 3:34 PM EDT
New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny followed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to Tampa and filed “Democrats Scowl at Romney Joke” for Friday's edition, treating as a weighty matter a harmless joke by the candidate to a group of unemployed people as one of a series of “occasionally awkward...off-the-cuff remarks.” Yet the Times has remained silent as President Obama has reeled off a series of gaffes about the high unemployment under his watch.
Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop here on Thursday, listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own.
“I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.”
NYT's Seelye Again Flubs John Edwards's Dem ID; Zeleny Calls Indictment a 'Tragedy All the Way Around'
By Clay Waters | June 9, 2011 | 2:24 PM EDT Another day, another New York Times story by Katharine Seelye story on liberal Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards that completely leaves out the words "liberal" and "Democrat" -- an admiring profile of Edwards’s loyal daughter, "For Edwards’s Adult Daughter, A Recurring Role: Family Glue," which led Thursday's National section.
Seelye’s initial online story on Edwards’s indictment last Friday also left out the disgraced politician’s party affiliation, though it was added in by the time the story appeared in print Saturday.