TimesWatch

New York Times reporter Mark Landler spun for the president in Ohio in Friday's "Obama, Hitting Road in Rust Belt, Offers Tough Talk on Jobs and Trade." Landler, whose reporting on Obama is getting more gushy as the election nears, shone his journalistic flashlight on any slivers of good economic news he could find and suggested they would benefit Obama in the Midwest.

Erica Greider reviewed on Tuesday the recent conservative-bashing book by New York Times columnist and former editorial page editor Gail Collins, As Texas Goes – How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. Greider covers the region for the Economist and knows something about Texas history, which puts Collins at a disadvantage. Greider wrote: ...Her book, 'As Texas Goes... ,' pays…

Not even in death will the New York Times accurately describe Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat as a terrorist. In a January 6, 2005 story not long after Arafat's death, then-Jersualem bureau chief Steven Erlanger described Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as having "no heroic history like that of his predecessor as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasir…

The New York Times marked Independence Day in its usual dismal fashion, with editor-novelist Kurt Andersen's op-ed, "The Downside of Liberty," claiming that the "libertarian coin" "minted around 1967" has made Americans shamelessly selfish. (It's the second-most emailed Times story as of noon Thursday.) This spring I was on a panel at the Woodstock Writers Festival. An audience member asked a…

The obituary in Sunday's New York Times of an abortion activist followed the paper's standard liberal template of obfuscation when discussing unpopular liberal stands on social issues: "Joan Dunlop, 78, Advocate for Women’s Health Rights." The text box read: "A life spent helping women expand control of their bodies." Including abortion. Yet although the Reagan-hating Joan Dunlop worked for the…

Reporter Steven Lee Myers heaped praise on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a 5,500-word profile for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, evident in the title, "Last Tour of the Rock-Star Diplomat." One of Myers's big scoops is that Hillary Clinton can remember names and personal details, which is apparently just as important as all that foreign policy guff: "Whatever she might have…

In passionate text that reads more like a pro-Obama opinion piece than a straight news story, New York Times reporter Mark Landler delivered "A Vindication, With a Legacy Still Unwritten" for Friday's front page. Landler was passionate about the "change we can believe in" wrought by the president through the Affordable Care Act, which Landler called his expansion of the "nation's safety net"…

New York Times legal reporter Adam Liptak used his Friday lead (five other reporters contributed research) on Obama-care being upheld at the Supreme Court to take another crack at the argument by conservatives and libertarians, the so-called broccoli argument "as misguided, if not frivolous." Conservatives took comfort from two parts of the decision: the new limits it placed on federal…

The New York Times's latest TimesCast was wholly devoted to the shocking decision on Obama-Care, in which Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed to the bench by a Republican president, joined the four liberals on the court to uphold Obama's legislation. In a possible sign of bias to come, the TimesCast will feature commentary from Ben Smith of Buzzfeed.com during the election season. Host…

On the eve of the Supreme Court's monumental decision on Obama-care Thursday morning, New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner chided Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for politicizing the bench in "A Dissent By Scalia Is Criticized As Political." But when liberal Justices get political, they are "'passionate and pointed" and finding their own voice.

New York Times reporters have been hammering away at Mitt Romney over his handling of the immigration issue, using last week's Supreme Court decision that unanimously upheld the main component of Arizona's immigration enforcement law to portray him as in an awkward and defensive position with Latino voters (while downplaying the fact that illegal immigration is a lower priority for Latinos than…

Obama-Care isn't dead yet, but Peter Baker's lead New York Times story Sunday on Obama-Care laid out a provisional autopsy in anticipation of the Supreme Court's decision, expected Thursday, that may eviscerate some or all of the president's major piece of legislation: "Supporters Slow to Grasp Health Law's Legal Risks – Initial Confidence Proved a Miscalculation, Raising What-Ifs About…

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters led Monday's front-page cheers for the new enthusiasm in the gay community surrounding Barack Obama's reelection campaign: "In Gay Pride Legions, Seeing an Obama Army." To most passers-by, the tens of thousands of people who jammed the sidewalks of Greenwich Village on Sunday were just the typical tank-top-clad revelers of a gay pride weekend.