TimesWatch

New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse was up to his old rhetorical tricks on Tuesday, using the Democratic euphemism “revenues," when Democrats are in fact calling for tax hikes as part of a budget deal tied to increasing the debt limit, in “Debt Divide Remains As President Steps In.”

On Wednesday, the New York Times's Caracas-based reporter Simon Romero drew a favorable sketch of two anti-American strongmen, Cuba’s Communist dictator Fidel Castro and leftist autocrat and ideological sibling Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, in “Venezuelan, Like Castro, Has Brother At the Ready.” Romero led off with left-wing flattery of the two nations: To the many comparisons that can been…

The front page of Wednesday’s National section of the New York Times featured the suddenly ubiquitous Ian Urbina advancing the paper’s agenda against the natural gas industry, as he’s been doing all week: “Lawmakers Seek Inquiry Of Natural Gas Industry.” Luckily for the Times, it found a few liberal Democrats to keep the story going by calling for an investigation into industry practices.…

The “Inside the List” column for the New York Times’s Sunday Book Review, compiled by Jennifer Schuessler, discussed Ann Coulter’s latest New York Times bestseller “Demonic” under the subhead “Woman In Black.” The first paragraph of the Times’ official Topics page for Coulter describes the author as “ultraconservative,” and Schuessler’s Book Review brief is no less loaded:

For a paper so eager to wean us off “our addiction to foreign oil,” the New York Times is pretty squeamish when it comes to the actual alternatives. Ian Urbina’s Sunday lead story was the paper's latest attack on the natural gas industry, “Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush – Productivity of Shale Wells Is a Concern – Investor Flood Spurs Talk of Bubble.” That was followed by…

New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny was with Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann in Waterloo, Iowa, at the official launching of her presidential campaign for Tuesday’s “Bachmann Opens Campaign as Expectations Grow.” But Zeleny concluded his mostly balanced story with a reference to Bachmann’s latest in a “string of gaffes” – her mistaken claim that Western movie star John Wayne had been born in…

“Page One,” a new documentary about a year in the life of the New York Times directed by Andrew Rossi, is showing at the sleek new Lincoln Center theatre on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for a mere $13. While not openly partisan or even political (there were no Obama stickers spotted on desks, no rants about the paper’s myriad conservative critics), “Page One,” which captures in semi-compellingif…

New York Times’s White House reporter Mark Landler provided puffball coverage of Vice President Joe Biden, who has evidently “overcome his reputation for gaffes” (says who?), in “Obama’s Growing Trust in Biden Is Reflected in His Call on Troops” Saturday.  Landler emphasized the increasing confidence Biden is inspiring at the White House.

Did New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller really sign on to a proposal by G.O.P. libertarian candidate Ron Paul? Yes, though it had nothing to do with the gold standard, abolishing the Federal Reserve, or lowering taxes, but a possible conservative compromise position on gay marriage which would give Republicans "a chance to avoid being on the wrong side of history." In the wake of New…

As expected, New York Times coverage of the law passed late Friday night allowing gay marraige in New York State was heavily favorable. Sunday’s front page New York Times story provided the tick-tock on how New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo marshaled support to pass gay marriage in the Republican-controlled New York State Senate in part by convincing “super-rich Republican donors” to support him, in…

New York Times investigative reporter James Risen, notorious for exposing (along with colleague Eric Lichtblau) two anti-terrorist government programs during the Bush years, filed an affidavit in federal court in Virginia on Tuesday, refusing to comply with a subpoena that he identify a source in his 2006 book “State of War” about a C.I.A. plan to feed Iran bad information to cripple its…

“Fiscal conservatism, in other words, comes with its own costs.” That sums up the lead story in Thursday’s National section by Michael Powell and Midwest bureau chief Monica Davey from Indianapolis, “The Indiana Exception? Yes, but...A State Averts the Worst of the Recession, But Its Success Comes at a Steep Social Cost.” It’s a major story, packed with statistics and charts and interviews,…

Isn’t it inspiring? Once again, the Obama family is bringing peace and raising esteem for America in a foreign land by their very presence. Back on March 21, New York Times reporters Alexei Barrionuevo and Jackie Calmes with Obama gushed “Brazilians who gathered at a plaza trying to catch a glimpse of him said that he had inspired millions in this country because of his African heritage.”…

New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer showed her labeling slant in Wednesday’s “news analysis” on how the war in Libya is tearing apart the Republican Party, “U.S. Mission Exposes Divisions in Congress and Within G.O.P.,” finding “conservatives” and “right-of-center” pols, but failing to identify the ultra-liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich as a liberal. The strongest word Steinhauer could find…