In "Challenging a Rival, Viewer by Viewer," The New York Times’ TV reporter Jacques Steinberg gives a  pretty straight-forward account of CNN’s ongoing struggle to catch up to cable news titan Fox News.

 Sure, Steinberg tries mightily to find a silver lining in the cloud of this ratings trouncing, but there’s none of the overt bias he often displays. But there is this…

 Two instances in which the liberal-leaning synergy that so clearly unites the Times and CNN is actually acknowledged. Twice in one article.

 First, Steinberg reports on Anderson Cooper’s coverage of the attempt to secure trailers for displaced residents of New Orleans, noting, “A description of a similar scene later appeared in an article on the front page of The New York Times.”

 A few paragraphs later, CNN President Jonathan Klein is boasting about the network’s on-site coverage of a a 2,400-foot tunnel discovered last month under the border between Tijuana and San Diego.

"To their credit, our shows just went," Mr. Klein said. "They didn't need to see it on the wires all over the place. They didn't need to see it on the front page of The New York Times." [emphasis added].

 Call it an unspoken admission of ideological synergy.