TimesWatch

Peculiar priorities at the New York Times. Reporter Scott Sayare, in Toulouse in the aftermath of the killings of seven by a radical Muslim, seemed to think that the top story out of the tragedy was Muslim fear of rising tensions and loss of "diversity": "After Killings in France, Muslims Fear a Culture of Diversity Is at Risk." Toulouse is by no means without racism, anti-Semitism, crime or…

New York Times reporter turned columnist Frank Bruni is on a nasty streak. He devoted his long Sunday Review column, "Rethinking His Religion," to a former classmate with a pat liberal morality lesson that seemed a lot like an invasion of patient privacy, then attacked Newt Gingrich and insulted Gingrich's wife. James Taranto at Best of the Web explained: New York Times columnist Frank Bruni…

Movie reviewer A.O. Scott on Wednesday applied his expertise to the scientific ssue of global warming and rising sea levels, in his sarcasm-laden review of "The Island President," a documentary about "climate change" and the danger it supposedly poses to the island of Maldives: "In Paradise, and Closer Than Ever to Disaster."

There was some strange poll placement in Tuesday's New York Times, which led with "New Poll Finds Drop In Support For Afghan War." Yet the paper buried a story from the same poll, showing people are strongly against ObamaCare, on page 17. Given that the Supreme Court is now arguing the issue, wouldn't it have been more timely for the Times to lead off with or at least front its ObamaCare…

The New York Times coverage of the Pope's trip to the dictatorship of Cuba has a strange, cheap-shot emphasis on how the Cuban people are coerced to attend such rallies, an authoritarian power play, but one the paper rarely if ever bothers to address during Cuban May Day rallies held in celebration of communism. A nytimes.com search suggests the Times has never previously used the words "…

Saturday's front-page New York Times story by Susan Saulny focused on the Santorum campaign in Louisiana before Santorum's easy win in the Republican primary there: "On the Right, Santorum Has Women's Vote." Saulny emphasized the religious angle of Santorum's appeal. The condescending story provided slight corrective to the paper's misleading previous coverage assuming Santorum lacked support…

Has the New York Times Business section gone soft on former New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, now under the scandal spotlight for his service as chief executive of the failed financial services firm MF Global? Saturday's Business Day story by Azam Ahmed and Ben Protess buried intriguing details that reflect suspiciously on Corzine under the bland headline, "Congressional Memo Sheds New…

The New York Times's Scott Sayare reported on Saturday from Toulouse, France, the sight of the killing of Jewish schoolchildren by a radical Islamist, "After Unity Over a Rampage in France, Politics Drives in Wedges," and accused the French paper Le Figaro as being "increasingly viewed as a mouthpiece" for tough-on-crime French President Nicolas Sarkozy. That's quite ironic, considering…

Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse, who previously confessed she couldn't grasp "the moral compass" of people who opposed Obama-care, denied the need for any balance when discussing the constitutionality of the matter in her Wednesday column, since the measure's opponents are so obviously wrong. Journalistic convention requires that when there are two identifiable…

Friday's New York Times column by Paul Krugman is titled "Paranoia Strikes Deeper." (It's evidently a sequel to Krugman's "Paranoia Strikes Deep" column of November 9, 2009. We eagerly await the final installment of the trilogy, "Paranoia Strikes Deepest," which should come out before the 2012 election.)

New York Times critic Jeannette Catsoulis didn't even try in her brief review to render an objective look at the pro-life movie "October Baby," as her copy seethed with anger and evident indignation that pro-lifers still existed in this day and age (note to Catsoulis: by some poll numbers, there are more pro-lifers that pro-abortion believers). Catsoulis's political views are of the simplistic…

Scott Sayare and Steven Erlanger reported for the New York Times from Toulouse, France on Thursday on the cornering of the killer of seven people in France, including three children: "Shooting Suspect, Cornered and Armed, Tells French Police That He Killed 7." The story was filed before the suspect, Mohammad Merah, was shot dead in a police raid. Merah's confession obviously made it hard for…

Comedian Bill Maher, host of HBO's panel show "Real Time," appeared in Thursday's New York Times, pleading for a cease-fire in the current culture wars over insensitivity: "Please Stop Apologizing." It's quite a convenient argument for Maher, given that he's been under fire from conservatives lately for his vulgar and demeaning descriptions of Sarah Palin, delivered last year both on his HBO…

In his latest "Economic Scene" column for Wednesday's New York Times, "Inequality Undermines Democracy," Eduardo Porter seemed puzzled by why Americans aren't into class warfare. Porter, a former economics reporter for the Times, fretted America was turning into a "hereditary plutocracy" and put in another plug for the lefties of Occupy Wall Street.