The New York Times is displaying an astounding lack of curiosity about a significant charge of racism relayed by its own editorial page editor. Brent Staples was quoting a Missourian article by University of Missouri journalism professor Cynthia Frisby when something she wrote just leaped off the page. It was a charge of racist slurs being hurled at her by fellow School of Journalism faculty members. So what is the response from the Times? Nothing. Even though it would be easy to investigate, they have not checked into her charges. Here is the shocking claim by Professor Frisby as relayed by the incredibly incurious Staples:

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters let the Republicans in Congress know he was tired of their silly and "waste of time" attempts to repeal Obamacare in Wednesday's "House to Vote Yet Again On Health Care Repeal."

(Peters was last seen helping Chuck Hagel, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense, limp across the confirmation finish line.) He wrote on Wednesday:

Tuesday's front-page New York Times story by Michael Shear and Jonathan Weisman, "Obama Dismisses Benghazi Furor But Assails I.R.S," again emphasized partisan back-and-forth at the expense of journalistic digging into the actual facts of the IRS and Benghazi controversies swirling around the Obama White House.

Weisman's byline is an assurance that the story to follow will be light on details and heavy breathing on Republican partisanship. Tuesday's entry fit the bill, especially the lead sentence, in which Weisman prioritized the partisan angle of "Republican adversaries" over the substantive angle of "new questions about the administration’s conduct."

The New York Times did some damage control for the Obama administration in its lead editorial Tuesday, defending in part, the IRS's politically motivated audits against fledgling Tea Party nonprofits during the last campaign cycle. The paper ridiculously portrayed the White House as just as outraged as conservatives in a headline: "White House Under Fire: It Condemns I.R.S. Audits of Political Groups."

And the paper's own public editor lambasted the paper's soft-soap coverage of the scandal: "Many on the right – as noted last week in my blog posts about Benghazi – do not think they can get a fair shake from The Times. This coverage won’t do anything to dispel that belief."

Scandalous news that the Internal Revenue Service intimidated nonprofit opponents of the Obama administration made page 11 of Saturday's New York Times.

The IRS apology to Tea Party and other conservative organizations for politically motivated targeting of their nonprofit status was dealt with in mild fashion by reporter Jonathan Weisman, though not on the front page. "I.R.S. Apologizes to Tea Party Groups Over Audits of Applications for Tax Exemption." The same audits that were applauded last year by the Times' s editorial page. And a Monday front-page follow-up was topped with what even liberal journalists found a bizarre headline: "IRS Focus on Conservatives Gives GOP an Issue to Seize On." That's the story?