Thomas Kaplan

Abortion or Bust! Pro-Choice Extremism Doomed 10-Point 'Women's Equality Act' in New York; NYTimes Places Story on A16
By Ken Shepherd | June 24, 2013 | 7:13 PM EDT

A stubborn, doctrinaire insistence by hard-line abortion rights advocates that a bill titled the Women's Equality Act must not pass without language further liberalizing the Empire State's abortion laws doomed the bill to failure in the New York State Assembly, the New York Times's Thomas Kaplan reported today. Even so, the Times did its best to shield the abortion lobby -- groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood -- for blame for the death of legislation with "widespread support" that would "strengthen the state’s laws against sexual harassment, human trafficking, domestic violence and salary discrimination."

In his page A16 article article in Monday's Times -- blandly headlined "All-or-Nothing Strategy on Women's Equality Legislation Ends With Nothing" -- reporter Thomas Kaplan noted that:

Page A29 at the NYT, With a Dull Headline: Cuomo Says Gun 'Confiscation Could Be an An Option'
By Tom Blumer | December 22, 2012 | 9:05 AM EST

On Thursday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told an Albany radio station some of his ideas for gun control: “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.”

But in covering what Cuomo said, Thomas Kaplan at the New York Times prefaced Cuomo's specific statement, which he buried in the story's seventh paragraph, by writing that "Mr. Cuomo did not offer specifics about the measures he might propose." Looks "specific" enough to me, Tom. The Times, perhaps sensing that a statement such as Mr. Cuomo's might be the kind with the potential to seriously damage the gun control cause, buried Kaplan's story on Page A29 in Friday's print edition and gave it a boring headline:

WSJ Almost Uniquely Raises Self-Insurance Issue in 'Immaculate Contraception' Editorial
By Tom Blumer | February 11, 2012 | 9:54 AM EST

Yesterday's announcement by President Obama (headlined at the White House's website as "Remarks by the President on Preventive Care") of planned revisions to an ObamaCare-driven rule which, in the President's words, "if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company -– not the hospital, not the charity -– will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays and without hassles."

Showing just how out of touch the establishment press is with reality, an editorial this morning in the Wall Street Journal cutely titled "Immaculate Contraception" points out something most, including the Associated Press, have missed -- that in a large number of cases involving many thousands of employees, there is no "insurance company" there to directly pay for these services:

NYT vs. 'Pain' and 'Hurt' of State Budget Cuts: New York State Edition
By Clay Waters | April 1, 2011 | 9:15 PM EDT

The New York Times vs. state spending cuts, take three. After the New York State legislature passed a $132.5 billion budget under new Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo that cuts overall spending by two percent, Albany-based reporter Thomas Kaplan went looking for budget victims for Friday’s “After an On-Time Passage of a Pared-Back Budget, Bracing for the Pain to Come.”

Not once did the Times forward an elementary piece of information -- the state’s $10 billion deficit. The word “deficit” did not appear in the story, although the emotionally laded word “pain” appeared three times, including in the headline. One had to look to local coverage for that basic piece of fiscal information. Instead, Kaplan went around soliciting sob stories, from school teachers, to prison guards, to NYC Mayor Bloomberg.