TimesWatch

New York Times "TV Watch" columnist Alessandra Stanley focused Friday on MSNBC's embarrassingly partisan coverage of the Republican National Convention and tried to contrast it with the struggle of NBC's more objective reporters to remain above the fray: "MSNBC, Arch Counterprogramming to Fox." The online head was more interesting: "How MSNBC Became Fox’s Liberal Evil Twin." Stanley even…

Leave it to former New York Times political correspondent (now Los Angeles bureau chief) Adam Nagourney to find bad news for Romney in his running mate's Paul Ryan's rapturously received convention speech. "With Speech, Ryan May Have Helped Himself More Than Romney," Nagourney nagged in a Thursday afternoon "Caucus" post. By every measure – the cheers in the hall, the praise from commentators…

Running scared? New York Times editorial board member and former Times reporter David Firestone, who has never hidden his liberalism in either position, accused vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan of "dishonesty" and "cowardice" on the Opinion Editor's blog early Thursday afternoon, "Beyond Factual Dishonesty."

New York Times reporter Michael Cooper took elaborate pains to emphasize just how far to the right the GOP has come from those moderate days of -- Ronald Reagan's election? -- in Wednesday's, "Platform’s Sharp Turn to the Right Has Conservatives Cheering." The jump page included side-by-side text comparisons of "Republican Party Platforms, Then and Now." Yet Democratic Party platforms are…

New York Times White House reporter Jackie Calmes trailed the Obama campaign to the University of Virginia, "In College Town, Obama Jokes at G.O.P.’s Expense," where the president tried to convince adoring college students to vote by portraying Mitt Romney as a threat to their college loans. Typically, Calmes praised Obama's "thoughtful" answer to a question he received during a website Q…

New York Times Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal displayed his usual class, charm, and mastery of current events in his Twitter posts leading up to and through the start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Before Tuesday night, Rosenthal didn't seem very clued in to the news, posting this on Monday: "If the GOPers love Chris Christie so much, why is he scheduled to speak…

New York Times reporter Michael Cooper's brief "Caucus" story for Wednesday's edition (not yet online), "'You Didn't Build That,' But He Wasn't Saying That," is yet another tiresome defense of the president from the paper's objective journalists, claiming Obama didn't really mean what came out of his mouth in a speech in Roanoke, Va.: "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody…

Tuesday's lead New York Times editorial, which cynically used what is now Hurricane Isaac to make pro-Democratic political hay, also displayed the paper's galling hypocrisy on emergency natural disaster spending: "The Storm, Again – As high winds approach the gulf coast, Republicans advocate a less prepared government." Perhaps they were reading old Times editorials on flood control, which…

How painfully predictable: The New York Times filled the news gap caused by the cancellation of Monday's events with rumors of party discord. In fact, the Times first tried to gin up controversy at the 2012 Republican National Convention long ago. Here's a May 13, 2010 report from Damien Cave on how toxic beaches in Tampa might ruin the Republican convention, then over two years away: The…

When the New York Times sends reporters to compare and contrast the Romney and Obama campaign styles, little surprise who comes off looking best. The banner headline on the front of Monday's special Campaign 2012 section set the scene: "Two Campaigns With Styles as Similar as Red and Blue." Ashley Parker and Michael Barbaro trailed the Republica candidate in Iowa and found that while "Earnest…

Even the weather is tilting against the GOP, Jim Rutenberg (pictured) and Michael Shear reported from the Republican National Convention in Tampa for Monday's New York Times. They cynically employed the threat of Tropical Storm Isaac, shaping it into a desperate pro-Obama weapon to use against Republican principles of limited government: "Storm Rewrites G.O.P.'s Script For Convention."

Sunday's lead New York Times story by the political team of Jeff Zeleny (pictured) and Jim Rutenberg accused Romney of playing the race card with false ads on welfare reform: "Romney Adopts Harder Message For Last Stretch – Nod To White Workers – A Tropical Storm Threat Forces Party to Delay Convention by a Day." The Times accused the Romney campaign of ads "falsely charging that Mr. Obama…

In anticipation of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, the New York Times Sunday Review section, edited by liberal veteran reporter Andrew Rosenthal, was crammed with articles, interviews, and features hostile toward Republicans. Los Angeles bureau chief Adam Nagourney found the GOP in danger of losing the South and maybe even Texas one day in "The Sun Belt, Eclipsed."

Don't believe in global warming? Are you pro-life? Then you're an idiot, says Timothy Egan, a former liberal New York Times reporter turned left-wing Times columnist. In his Friday online column "The Crackpot Caucus" he said of the Republican Party: "...if intelligence were contagious, [the GOP] would be giving out vaccines for it." Egan strings together quotes of some congressional…