TimesWatch

The front page of Wednesday's New York Times featured another lament for the supposed new "austerity" encompassing the nation, from economics reporter (and enthusiastic Keynesian) Binyamin Appelbaum, "As Budget Cuts Loom, Austerity Has Killed Off Government Jobs." An accompanying graphic with text insisted "Austerity Is Already Here." Federal government spending often falls after recessions…

New York Times investigative reporter Michael Moss's huge cover story, "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food is a super-sized 9,400 words long, eclisped perhaps only by Matt Bai's slanted magazine cover story on the debt fight in last April. A. Barton Hinkle saved everyone some time with a succinct sarcastic summary column. A recent cover story in The New York Times Magazine…

The New York Times sent reporters scurrying around the country to deliver Tuesday's dire dose of sequestration fear -- a full page (with photos) of impending cuts to a range of federal programs starting Friday. Lead reporter Michael Cooper set the groaning board: The owner of a Missouri smokehouse that makes beef jerky is worried about a slowdown in food safety inspections. A Montana school…

Reporting on former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel's nomination to serve Obama as secretary of defense, the New York Times' Jeremy Peters tried to imply as he has before that the Republican move to filibuster Hagel, who bombed in hearings, was both uncollegial and unprecedented. But Peters had to stretch in his Tuesday piece, limiting his examples to the narrow fact that Hagel is the first…

New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer missed the point in her Tuesday take on Michelle Obama's "star turn" on Oscar night to announce the award for best picture at the Academy Awards, "A Tale of Secret Talks and Intrigue Behind Michelle Obama's Oscars Appearance." She may not have walked the red carpet, but Michelle Obama -- all bangs and biceps and bling -- had her own star turn during…

Times personal finance reporter Tara Siegel Barnard would love the U.S. to embrace Europe's cradle-to-grave safety net mind-set, lumping America with apparently inferior countries like Liberia, Suriname and Papua New Guinea for the sin of not offering paid maternity leave. Barnard made the argument in Saturday's Business section, in her first column since returning from maternity leave, "In…

Over the weekend the New York Times painted the $85 billion in budget cuts that will start kicking in Friday – known in Washington-speak as sequestration -- in dramatic terms, falsely heralding a new age of "government austerity" (since when?) and passing along stories of budget-cut fear-mongering from the state level. Saturday's lead from Michael Cooper painted a White House-friendly horror…

In the aftermath of the Oscars, New York Times fashion reporter Eric Wilson bizarrely documented an example of "feminine repression" on the red carpet in Monday's arts section. Almost as silly was a Critics' Notebook from the painfully political movie review duo Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, who delivered the shocking news that Hollywood movies are less than historically reliable, while…

Worse than a hurricane? New York Times reporter Matthew Wald went a bit overboard in his Friday story on possible delays at airports because of the budget cuts due to take effect next week, known as the sequester: "Spending Cuts Threaten Delays In Air Travel."

Friday's lead editorial encapsulates the liberal mindset that drives the New York Times: "Why Taxes Have to Go Up." And not just on the rich -- the Times argues that the rich must pay more first in order to build "consensus" for raising taxes on the middle class as well. In Times-land, there is no such thing as a spending problem, only a failure to sufficiently raise taxes on everyone.

Friday's lead New York Times story celebrated "G.O.P. Governors Providing a Lift For Health Law." The most notable convert: Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who reversed his position this week and announced his support for expanding Medicaid. The Times' Abby Goodnough and Robert Pear credited Scott for the embrace of Obama-care (via "proponents" who "say that doing so will not only save lives, but…

The New York Times is engaging in defense of scandal-plagued Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, accused of influence peddling in his suspicious relationship with Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, who flew Menendez to the Dominican Republic on his private plane. Menendez intervened on Melgen's behalf in two Medicare disputes. Last Sunday the paper very strangely chided a conservative group, the…

Basking in the campaign-like trappings of Obama's White House press conference, reporter Jackie Calmes repeated in Wednesday's New York Times, the president's horror stories on the purportedly deep impact of mandatory budget cuts, known as the "sequester," that are scheduled to hit March 1: "Obama Tries to Turn Up Pressure on Republicans as Cutbacks Near." The cuts amount to an estimated $85…

On the front of Saturday's Business section, New York Times economics reporter Annie Lowrey flatteringly quoted unlabeled left-wing French economist Emmanuel Saez, who may be the Times' favorite economist, in yet another hang-wringer on the evils of income inequality and the dreaded 1%: "Incomes Flat In Recovery, But Not For the 1%." In an October 2012 article Lowrey termed Saez, who favors…