I'm going to end up skimming the features and skipping the "news" pages altogether. Is anybody else noticing this stuff?
It's looking like the NYTimes is out of control. This is the way one of the paper's teasers read on today's print front page:
In Iraq, the report from General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to Congress was viewed favorably because it portrayed the situation accurately [my italics]. While many said they preferred a quick withdrawal of troops, several seemed to accept that sectarian violence would keep American forces in Iraq for some time to come.Inside the paper, on page A10, the article itself made it clear that the glowing opinion of the account given by the pair Maureen Dowd calls the "Surge Twins" was actually one held by the very few Iraqis the reporter either bothered to or was able to ask (perhaps in telephone interviews):
More than 20 Iraqis of different sects and ethnicities said in interviews across the country that they viewed the report favorably because it or, at least the parts shown on television in Iraq portrayed the situation accurately.Does this sound like objective reporting? Most readers probably never made it to the tenth page, and so were left [deliberately?] with an impression of this historical encounter that had been created by a totally misleading marketing blurb/preview.
[image of 1888 Puck cartoon from answers.com]