TimesWatch

No political motivations here! Devoting a full story to President Obama calling birth-control activist Sandra Fluke for the sake of his daughters, New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes (and her headline writer) on Wednesday gave the president the benefit of the doubt by not questioning the propriety of dragging his young daughters into the debate over Fluke, who was called a "slut" by Rush…

Seattle-based New York Times reporter William Yardley reported melodramatically from Boise Saturday on the retirement of a gay state lawmaker, Nicole LeFavour, raising her gay rights priorities over those of every other legislator in Idaho: "Idaho Senator to Push Gay Rights Bill From the Outside."

New York Times reporter Richard Perez-Pena wrote Tuesday about the low-brow fight that's broken out online between high-brow Columbia University and the women's college it's affiliated with, Barnard, over President Obama's politically motivated decision to speak at Barnard's commencement in May. Another wrinkle: Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson was the original graduation speaker at the…

Novelist (and Socialist Workers Party member) China Mieville wrote the main essay for the London issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, "'Oh London, You Drama Queen.'" According to him, London is a mess of racism and youth alienation, and only free public housing and celebration of loud music on the tube will save it. He also excused last summer's burning and rioting, motivated by a "deep…

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and religion reporter Laurie Goodstein profiled GOP candidate Rick Santorum for the front of Sunday's New York Times and seemed uncomfortable with the candidate's brand of strong Catholicism: "From 'Nominal Catholic' to Clarion of Faith – In Santorum's Religious Journey, Wife and Family Were Key." The Times described how Santorum's dinner-table discussion with his future…

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd made the front of the Sunday Review describing how she once had her feelings hurt by Rush Limbaugh, who is drawing liberal fire by calling leftist birth-control activist Sandra Fluke a "slut" on his radio show (he has since apologized): "Have You No Shame, Rush?" Also: Rick Santorum has a "medieval" view of women. As a woman who has been viciously slashed…

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter on Monday defended Hollywood and the new HBO movie "Game Change," a hit job on the 2008 vice presidential campaign of Sarah Palin based on the book by liberal reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. In "Rogue, Rube or G.O.P. Star: Portraying Palin," Stelter defended Hollywood from "conspiracy theories" that the movie is meant "to undermine a…

Occupy the New York Times! In January Times Watch noted that Times staffers who were members of the Newspaper Guild of New York were protesting the New York Times Co. for freezing pensions for some employees, even as it granted a $15 million golden parachute to former chief executive Janet Robinson after she departed in 2011. An open letter to Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. has so far been…

New York Times media editor Bruce Headlam was less than gracious after the sudden death of conservative media activist Andrew Breitbart, citing in a Times webcast “his willingness to push the limits of what he saw as journalism, what a lot of other people saw as just stunts and demagoguery.” Media reporter Jeremy Peters wrote the official Times obituary Friday for Breitbart, who died suddenly…

On Thursday, New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman fretted over the lack of GOP centrists (a common and long-lasting theme in Timesland) after news broke of the surprise retirement of "fed up" moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine: “After Many Tough Choices, the Choice to Quit.” As Weisman tells it, it was the rise of those distracting “social issues” that sent Snowe over the…

London-based New York Times reporter Alan Cowell sympathized with the British off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday: "British Authorities Demolish Protest Camp at St. Paul's Cathedral." Moving after midnight, bailiffs supported by police officers dismantled a tent encampment outside St. Paul's Cathedral here early Tuesday, ending a four-month protest that caused tension within the…

Liberal New York Times economics reporter turned left-wing editorial board member Eduardo Porter has published his first “Economic Scene” column, taking over from David Leonhardt, who is now Washington bureau chief. Porter is known at Times Watch for his embrace of Occupy Wall Street and for calling Mexican media mogul Carlos Slim a "thief" and "robber baron" in a 2007 editorial -- before…

Another campaign cycle, another chance for the New York Times to sic the government on GOP fund-raising groups? The gang from 2010 (Mike McIntire and Michael  Luo, pictured) got back together for Sunday’s front-page story, “Fine Line Between ‘Super PACs’ and Campaigns.” Luo in particular wrote several articles in 2010 suggesting the IRS and the Federal Election Commission might find it…

Times Watch has shown how deeply the Occupy Wall Street movement has embedded itself into the liberal psyche of New York Times reporters, who can’t help clogging their stories with flattering references to the lefty sit-in. The protesters may be dispersed, but the dream lives on in Times stories on such seemingly unlikely subjects as a revival of an Arthur Miller play and the sinking of the…