TimesWatch

The New York Times may flinch at the thought of cutting Medicare or unemployment benefits to cut deficits, but reporters have quickly warmed to the idea of a speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan in the name of cost-cutting. Reporter Michael Cooper spied an anti-war revival on Tuesday in “Mayors Call for a Quicker End to Wars So Money Can Be Used for Needs at Home,” picking up on a release from…

The New York Times marked Father’s Day last Sunday in its own special way -- here’s the front-page tease to a 4,000-word story by N.R. Kleinfeld: “In Brooklyn, a single mother, her son, her sperm donor and his lover are helping to redefine the concept of the American family.” At Opinion Journal, James Taranto was bothered by the Times's blithe unconcern for the child’s privacy in its rush to…

When it comes to gay issues, the New York Times more and more plays to its urban liberal readership, often tossing away the concept of journalism completely in favor of issuing frothy anecdotes of personal encouragement, like Shaila Dewan’s unjournalistic celebration in Monday’s Metro section of the possible imminent legalization of gay marriage in New York State, “Awaiting a Big Day, and…

New York Times investigative reporter Mike McIntire penned a hit piece on Justice Clarence Thomas for Sunday’s front page, trying to find a controversy in the funding by a friend of Thomas of a cultural museum in the justice’s hometown of Pin Point, Ga.: “The Justice and the Magnate – Friendship and Museum Project Put Focus on Ethics.” But looking past the loaded headline and lacings of ominous…

New York Times economics reporter Catherine Rampell’s front-page story Saturday on Arizona imposing limits on federal unemployment benefits it provides, “For  Want of a Word, Arizona’s Jobless Lose Checks,” is the latest Times story to fiercely defend unimpeded spending on unemployment benefits. Previously this year, Times reporters had questioned  “deepest and most far-reaching” cuts in…

New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny followed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to Tampa and filed “Democrats Scowl at Romney Joke” for Friday's edition, treating as a weighty matter a harmless joke by the candidate to a group of unemployed people as one of a series of “occasionally awkward...off-the-cuff remarks.” Yet the Times has remained silent as President Obama has reeled off a…

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller’s latest column for the Sunday Magazine tackled what the subhead called “Sarah Palin’s codependent relationship with the press (and vice versa).” In two contradictory paragraphs, Keller bluntly revealed the liberal media mindset of Palin loathing – then dismissed the idea of liberal media slant as almost entirely mythical. Keller also stated that "a…

Was disgraced Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, who carried on several inappropriate online chats with young women, a victim of a newly “puritanical” climate in Washington? That’s the inference from Kate Zernike’s front-page story for the New York Times's Week in Review, “Naked Hubris...While digital flux makes it easier for politicians to stray,” a companion piece to Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s…

On Sunday, New York Times movie critic John Anderson issued a favorable profile of “If a Tree Falls,” a partisan documentary from Marshall Curry featuring convicted arsonist Daniel McGowan of the environmental terrorist group Earth Liberation Front: “Activist or Terrorist, Rendered in Red, White and Green.” When Daniel McGowan moved in with his sister after college, he was so passionate about…

Joyless New York Times movie critic Manohla Dargis took to the Sunday Arts & Leisure page to spoil yet another summer movie season by ranting about the alleged paucity of roles for women on film: “The Living Is Easy; The Women Are Missing.” If you’re a woman who roared, snorted or sniggered at 'Bridesmaids,' if you like watching other women on screen, you should see it again. Because that…

New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera, now a regular on the paper’s op-ed page, equated congressional oversight with Anthony Weiner’s sexual peccadillos in Saturday’s “Blocking  Elizabeth Warren.”  Warren, a Harvard law professor, bankruptcy “expert,” and liberal crusader, is special advisor to the White House and a favorite among liberals and the Times for pushing the creation of a…

Not with a bang but with a whimper. Reporting from Juneau, Alaska, New York Times reporters Jim Rutenberg and William Yardley wrapped up Sunday the less-than-earthshaking findings from the media’s bizarre full-court press to see three-year-old emails from Sarah Palin’s time as Alaska governor -- “Palin’s E-Mails Undercut Simplistic Views of Her, Both Positive and Negative.” In the three years…

Michael Shear, chief writer for the New York Times’s “Caucus” blog, sounded sarcastic and bitter, almost angry, at the opening of the paper’s last “Caucus” podcast on Thursday about having to talk about the Anthony Weiner sex scandal. Host Sam Roberts: “But you pointed out that this is a particularly inopportune time for this latest sex scandal to break in Washington. Why is that?” Michael…

Timothy Egan, liberal reporter turned leftist online columnist for the New York Times, gave a potential kiss-of-death endorsement Thursday evening to a Republican presidential candidate -- moderate former Utah governor (and Obama ambassador to China) Jon Huntsman, in "The G.O.P.'s Jon Huntsman, the Reluctant Mormon." You see, unlike the "fact-denial chorus" who throw "red meat to the wackos" in…