Too Biased Even To Describe The Bias

Every other Sunday NY Times Public Apologist Clark Hoyt delivers a comedy classic.  This weekend he regales us with a explanation of the Times non-coverage of the ACORN debacle (my emphasis):

It was an intriguing story: employees of a controversial outfit, long criticized by Republicans as corrupt, appearing to engage in outrageous, if not illegal, behavior. An Acorn worker in Baltimore was shown telling the “prostitute” that she could describe herself to tax authorities as an “independent artist” and claim 15-year-old prostitutes, supposedly illegal immigrants, as dependents.

But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes — closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser — suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs. Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.

Mull over over the phrase I emphasized for a moment - see anything missing?

Let's see, does anyone think the Times does a poor job of covering stories that are getting wild attention from the Huffington Post, the Daily Kos, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann?  That is not my experience - it's old times, but the Times went all-in with the most extreme charge in the Jeff Gannon/Valerie Plame flare-up, based on "research" from the Daily Kos that didn't make sense and didn't hold up.

That is a bit of a weak start for Hoyt - the perceived problem is not that the Times passes over all the partisan media, it is that the Times ignores the right-wing media.  Dare we mention John Edwards, Charles Freeman, and Eason Jordan?

Hoyt writes of Missing Cities:

The Times quoted a statement by Bertha Lewis, Acorn’s chief executive, saying that the two activists, James O’Keefe, 25, and Hannah Giles, 20, spent months visiting Acorn offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia before getting the responses they wanted. But the article left out one city Lewis cited: New York [link]. Between the time of her statement and the publication of the article, a new video surfaced, featuring an Acorn worker in Brooklyn advising Giles to bury money from prostitution in a tin.

Some readers saw a deliberate effort by the paper to help Lewis out of a tight spot. Scott Shane, the reporter, said he had been unable to reach Lewis and felt that including New York among the cities she mentioned would have implied unfairly that she was lying, something for which he had no evidence. He said he thought it was unlikely that employees in New York would inform her of their misconduct before the video appeared. I think he should have included New York.

My goodness - why not just run the allegation about New York, then, with an explanation that the ACORN exec may have been misinformed.  Maybe Times readers are adults capable of making their own choice as to whether she was lying or in the dark?

The Times has spent too much time listening to Obama and Gibbs - now even they are deploring these distractions:

Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief, said, “We did not ignore the Acorn story, so I don’t think it’s fair for people to say we blew it off.” ...Baquet said people need to keep Acorn in perspective with other Washington stories: health care, two wars and the deep recession.

Right, and the Washington Bureau missed the Van Jones story because everyone was out on holiday.  With Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas still on the calendar I am confident the Times will miss a few more stories unfavorable to Team Obama.

Let's finish up Hoyt's swan dive into the tank:

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies. Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person “a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere.”

Despite what the critics think, Abramson said the problem was not liberal bias.

Nooooo. 

I recommend Memorandum and the InstaPundit for these poor Times hothouse reporters.  Memeorandum is a news aggregator which kicks up a lot of stories from the left, so the Times reporters will feel right at home.

Comments

[Captain Hate]

Silky is a vat of dysfunctionality but, as the son of a man who worked at The Mill, even he can realize the blatant comedic traits of a pompous poseur like Lurch.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Charlie: Who knew! I cringe when I hear someone use it.

I mostly thought that the def was amusing: it is so a word!

Since I'm one of those people who thinks you should use 'catenate' in place of 'concatenate' because they're synonyms, but catenate is shorter, I'm mostly on your side.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Charlie: Who knew! I cringe when I hear someone use it.

I mostly thought that the def was amusing: it is so a word!

Since I'm one of those people who thinks you should use 'catenate' in place of 'concatenate' because they're synonyms, but catenate is shorter, I'm mostly on your side.

[PD]

It seems Silky Pony used to make fun of John Kerry all the time, until he was nominated as his running mate.

Isn't hate turning to love upon being nominated for veep pretty common for all parties?

[Ignatz]

--Since I'm one of those people who thinks you should use 'catenate' in place of 'concatenate' because they're synonyms, but catenate is shorter, I'm mostly on your side.--

But in the case of 'irregardless' they aren't or shouldn't be synonyms right?
Regardless is without regard whereas irregardless creates a double negative meaning with regard.

[Knit up the whatever sleeve of care.]

I like ravel and unravel. What do those two words mean?
==================================

[xax]

BS!!

Rush says something, Palin says something, Beck, Hannity, et al say something and it dominates your news cycle.

But an organization, well affiliated with your chosen one, gets into big heap trouble and suddenly.... it's quiet. Too quiet.

[Where's Bill Safire when you need him?]

Darn up the shaggy sock of reck.
====================

[Jane]

Are you from the moon xax?

[sbw]

concatenate/catenate

I know there is a geek joke in there somewhere and it probably uses and exclusive or.

[PD]

What is xax referring to?

Er, to what is xax referring?

[Jane]

I couldn't figure it out either PD. I thought maybe he dropped in from outer space.

[Captain Hate]

I think xax is dumping on the Slimes's selective perception of what is newsworthy. Subject to check, of course.

[PeterUK]

Cash it first Captain.