An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times reports, "In 1999, after nearly a decade of unprecedented economic growth and well into the latest overhaul of the nation's welfare system, one in six American children -- over 12 million youngsters -- lived in poverty, according to the latest available figures from the Census Bureau."

A look at the Census Bureau statistics to which the Times is referring makes it clear that the Times is overstating the incidence of child poverty in America. The statistics are available on the Internet at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty99/table5.html. They make clear that there are at least 18 different definitions of poverty, based on whether you take into account the value of non-cash benefits like subsidized school lunches, food stamps, subsidized housing, and the earned-income tax credit. Of those 18 definitions, the one the Times uses in the first sentence of its article is the one that yields one of the largest definitions of poor children. Indeed, by that definition, 16.9 percent of the 71.7 million Americans under age 18 live in poverty -- about 12 million, or one in six. But if you use the most restrictive definition -- measuring poverty after accounting for food stamps, Medicaid, the earned-income tax credit, housing subsidies, etc. -- the portion of Americans under 18 living in poverty drops to 10.9 percent. That's closer to one in nine than one in six, and that's about 8 million poor children -- four million less than the 12 million the Times claims.

It's not just right-wing-lunatic types that recognize this. The Times article relies heavily on an outfit at Columbia University called the National Center for Children in Poverty, which, while retailing the "one-in-six" and "12 million" claim, also concedes in an April 2001 report: "Indeed, approximately 2.5 million children are lifted out of poverty due solely to the federal EIC program." They are "lifted out of poverty," however, only after the Times and Census Bureau count them as poor for the purpose of devising eye-popping child poverty statistics.

Eight million poor children is still a lot, and, if you are a poor child, knowing that there are four million less of you than the Times claims isn't much of a comfort. So why does the Times feel the need to exaggerate the size of this problem? Today's article seems driven less by an ideological agenda (though there may well be one) than by sheer confusion or ignorance. The Times article, for instance, says that "a tax break for the working poor, known as the Earned Income Tax Credit, has enabled them to keep more of what they make." In fact, the whole point of the Earned Income Tax Credit is not so much that lets the poor "keep more of what they make" but that, for many, it adds to their "earnings" over and above what they make. That's the nature of a refundable tax credit. If the federal earned-income tax credit were designed only to let the poor keep more of what they make, it wouldn't be refundable.

One-Sided: A news article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the policy debate over stem-cell research. It quotes an aide who said that "the White House had been bombarded by passionate pleas from people arguing for or against the research." A reader could search the article in vain for a single quotation or passionate plea from anyone arguing against the research, though the article does include extended references and quotes from at least three sources arguing for the research. Either the aide has it wrong or the Times article is strangely one-sided.

Whimsical: The lead article in the business section of today's New York Times reports a new line of Wal-Mart cosmetics "bearing whimsical names like Sheeny in a Bottle and Do Me a Flavor." The Times may consider "Sheeny in a Bottle" to be a whimsical name, but it is likely to strike more than a few Times readers and Wal-Mart customers as tasteless. Leo Rosten's 1989 "The Joys of Yinglish" defines "sheeny" as a "vulgarism" and "a thoroughly offensive name, combining contempt and disparagement, for a Jew."

Gaming: An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times refers to a "gaming executive" who is a donor to Republicans. The Times's own stylebook calls this a euphemism and says "gambling" should be used instead.

The national section of today's New York Times carries a profile of the new president of the Los Angeles City Council, Alex Padilla. The Times reports that Mr. Padilla "was re-elected to a full term this year and, despite his Hispanic roots, he supported Mr. Hahn rather than the mayoral hopeful Antonio Villaraigosa, a popular Latino candidate." Well, however "popular" Mr. Villaraigosa may have been, it wasn't popular enough to win the election. But what's really amazing here is the use of the word "despite." Does the Times really mean to suggest that when a politician is deciding whom to endorse, the assumed point of departure is racial solidarity? Does this apply to politicians of all races or just Hispanics?

Late Again: The New York Times metro section comes in today with the news that Andy Warhol's Long Island estate is on the market for $50 million. The property "was put on the market May 1," the Times reports. How, then, to account for the timing of today's New York Times article? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the news was reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal? Today's Times article doesn't mention yesterday's Journal article.

Neediest Cases: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on an evaluation of the city's privately run foster home programs. Scoring a 66.68 out of a possible 100 points was the Children's Aid Society -- one of the ten worst of the 40 programs rated. The Times fails to disclose that the Children's Aid Society is one of the main beneficiaries of the newspaper's own Neediest Cases Fund, funded with donations that the Times solicits from readers. The Times does note that Children's Aid "has a wide range of other highly regarded services for children not examined by the city." (It's the services, not the children, not examined.) Highly regarded by whom? And if the charity in question were another barely passing foster-care provider -- say, one without any ties to the newspaper's charitable campaign -- could it expect this sort of complimentary caveat?

The front page of the metro section of today's New York Times carries an article that begins, "Forget the big-league political consultants like David Garth, James Carville and Roger Ailes, who have become almost as famous as the candidates they shape and reshape to run for the presidency and other high offices."

Hello? Roger Ailes is not a "big-league political consultant" and he doesn't "shape and reshape" candidates. He used to be one. But since at least 1996, he's been a television news executive. The metro section editors might have noticed a little something about him and his new career in the Times Sunday magazine a few weeks back, had they been paying attention.

Price-Fixing: The national section of today's New York Times carries an article under the headline "Leading Colleges Adopt New Guidelines for Awarding Financial Aid." The "guidelines" amount to an anti-competitive price-fixing cartel, and the last time the colleges tried something like it, student aid awards increased dramatically after the Justice Department stepped in to halt the practice. The Times notes the Justice Department's action, along with a Congressional action, in passing near the end of today's article, but in general the newspaper falls for the colleges' spin, portraying the new guidelines as an effort to maintain need-based aid. The article quotes two college presidents but not a single independent economist, Justice Department official or tuition-paying parent.

Fresh from the "crises" over electricity regulation in Buffalo and health clinics in New York (see the June 1 Smartertimes), the New York Times informs its readers today in the lead, front-page news article that there is a "crisis" in the availability of lawyers for death-penalty appeals. "We have a crisis," the director of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project gravely intones.

The evidence of this "crisis," according to the Times, is that "In Alabama, about 40 of the approximately 185 death row inmates -- some within five months of filing deadlines for state appeals -- do not have counsel." Also, "of the about 600 inmates on California's death row, at least 161 have no lawyers to handle their direct appeals, and 72 others have no counsel for federal habeas corpus petitions."

The Times never even pauses to consider the possibility that one reason that some of these inmates do not have lawyers is that they really are guilty, and that they don't have any legitimate grounds for an appeal. The assumption seems to be that every single person convicted of a capital offense and sentenced to death, no matter how clear-cut the case against him, no matter how horrible the crime, and no matter how painstakingly fair the original trial was, should nevertheless go through the process of using what are in most cases taxpayer-funded lawyers to file endless appeals. Nor does the Times pause to consider that the public funds used to pursue these fruitless appeals on behalf of undeniably guilty clients might be better spent on crime prevention programs. You could fund a lot of Head Start programs and drug rehabilitation with the $10 million in tax funds spent on Timothy McVeigh's lawyers.

Of course, everyone, guilty or no, has a due process and equal protection right under the Constitution to adequate representation. But the Times cry of a "crisis" might be taken a little more seriously if the newspaper paused to consider some reasons for the lack of representation that go beyond the convenient "increased profit pressures" at corporate law firms. It's funny how the Times is against "increased profit pressures" everywhere except at its own company-owned newspapers, which are laying off employees and shrinking the space allotted for news.

Can't Spell: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times refers to "the Rev. Barry Lynne, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State." In fact, the correct spelling of Rev. Lynn's last name is without an "e."

Lost in Brooklyn: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports that mayoral candidate Herman Badillo "campaigned in Brooklyn, first at Junior's Restaurant, the cheesecake emporium, and later in Brooklyn Heights." The Times reports that "the foray into a Democratic stronghold was something of a departure for Mr. Badillo, who has concentrated in recent weeks on neighborhoods in the city with large numbers of registered Republicans." Brooklyn Heights is hardly a "Democratic stronghold"; in fact, anecdotal evidence suggests it has large numbers of registered Republicans.

Read yesterday's papers -- in today's New York Times.

The front page of today's Times carries the news that Tampa, Fla., is using digital cameras to scan the faces of visitors to find criminal suspects. This was all over the Drudge Report over the weekend and was the subject of an editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

The front page of today's Times also carries an article about the success of Web sites that sell airline tickets. This, too, was reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, in the "Heard on the Street" column under a headline that said, "Online Travel Firms Soar Above Web Crowd."

The lead headline on the metro section of today's Times says, "Vallone Seeks an Issue to Rev Up His Mayoral Campaign." This was the topic of Dick Morris's column in yesterday's New York Post, which said, "The look-alike, sound-alike mayoral field offers Vallone, the only bona fide moderate-conservative in the race, a real opportunity to shine by embracing real issues and making serious, specific proposals."

The national section of the Times carries an article about Rep. Gary Condit under the headline, "Congressman Is Accused of Asking Woman to Lie." (Mr. Condit says he has not suggested that anyone mislead the authorities.) Fox News reported this accusation on Monday. It was front-page news in the New York Post and the New York Daily News on Tuesday. Times readers had to wait until today to find out about it.

At this rate, the paper is going to have to change its name from the New York Times to the Day-Old York Times. There's nothing wrong with a newspaper following up a story that has already been reported elsewhere, but the art in that is in adding a fresh perspective, new information or additional context. The Times presents these articles, for the most part, as if its readers are hearing about these events for the first time.

The front-page weather forecast in the right ear of yesterday's New York Times predicted that the high temperature for the day would be 76. The front-page weather information in today's New York Times says that the high for the day was 72. In other words, the New York Times was off by a full four degrees in predicting the next day's temperature in its own hometown.

Not much of a surprise there: anyone who lives in the Northeast is used to the fact that weather predictions are not entirely reliable. Yet check out the lead story in the Science Times section of today's paper. "Supercomputers," the article informs readers, have assured that "weeklong weather forecasts are generally reliable." The article goes on to discuss models that predict, on a global basis, "roughly an average rise of 3 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit if greenhouse gases double from the concentrations measured before coal and oil burning and forest cutting significantly altered the atmosphere." The article is about the difficulty of modeling global climate change, but it seems like it may even be understating the difficulty. If the Times, supercomputers and all, is off by four degrees on the next day's temperature in its home town, what are readers supposed to make of a 3 to 8 degree prediction over a period of decades for the entire planet? This is not intended as an argument for doing nothing to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions, and, in some cases, it's easier to make a prediction for the long term than for the short term. But even with the cautionary "generally," the Times's own weather forecasting experience is a sign that the Science Times is overstating the reliability of weeklong weather forecasts.

A Turkey on Turkey: An item in the "World Briefing" column in the international section of today's New York Times reports that "The International Monetary Fund postponed an important review of Turkey's economic progress, saying the government has not adopted enough reforms, particularly in the banking sector. The delay means that Turkey will have to wait to receive its next installment of $1.6 million from the fund."

An item from Bloomberg News in the Times business section, however, reports, "The International Monetary Fund delayed a decision today on whether to make a $1.5 billion emergency loan to Turkey, saying its government has failed to carry out promises to overhaul the banking industry."

So which is it? "$1.6 million," as the "World Briefing" item in the international section reports? Or "$1.5 billion," as the article in the business section reports? If the Times thinks this news is important enough to merit reporting twice, in two sections of the paper, it might also be important enough to merit reporting accurately.

Johns Hopkins: The New York Times lets Michael Bloomberg off easy again today in an article in the national section that runs under the headline "F.D.A. Faults Johns Hopkins Over Process in Fatal Study." The article never mentions that Mr. Bloomberg, a candidate for mayor of New York City, is chairman of the board of Johns Hopkins. In fact, Mr. Bloomberg's name doesn't appear at all in the article. If an institution is being faulted for a fatal study, you might think that the fact that the institution's chairman is running for mayor of New York would be a fact worth sharing with readers.

Yeshiva: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on a court ruling in a case of lesbians suing Yeshiva University for denying them access to married-student housing. The article goes on at some length without ever mentioning the fact that Yeshiva University is essentially an Orthodox Jewish institution, and that Orthodox Judaism traditionally frowns on homosexuality. It would seem like that's a fact worth at least including in the article, the merits of the underlying case entirely aside.

Globe: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the naming of a new editor at the Times Company's Boston cash cow, the Globe. The article quotes the Globe's Boston-based publisher, but makes no mention of Arthur Sulzberger Jr. or other New York-based Times Company executives, who had to have had at least something to do with the decision to pass over such talented Globe assets as Greg Moore and David Shribman and instead hand the paper over to a white male who, as the Times article to its credit points out, "is the first top editor of The Globe in at least 50 years who has never worked at The Globe or lived in Boston."

This gem is from the "Writers on Writing" column in the arts section of today's New York Times: "Used to choosing my friends for their like minds and agreeable opinions, I found it hard to be thrust into relationships with supporters of the death penalty or the N.R.A., of prayer in schools or unbridled property rights. But in time I learned that it wasn't necessary to always speak to someone about the things on which we disagreed. We could find common ground in an interest in heirloom potato varieties or the vicissitudes of puppy training. Within a year or two I was surprised that several of the folk I'd disliked on first meeting had somehow turned into valued friends."

How better to sum up the condescending mindset of the New York Times? There's the implicit assumption that the Times readers are united in their opposition to the death penalty and that they don't include any members of the N.R.A. There's the disdain for "unbridled property rights" -- with the standard refusal to follow this disdain to its logical conclusion. Would the writer also propose to surrender her intellectual property rights and give up the rights to her book royalties? There's self-congratulatory open-mindedness that isn't really open-minded at all: the writer pats herself on the back for becoming friends with those she differs with politically, but the "friendship" seems not to extend to engaging them seriously about their political opinions. There's a fancy word --"vicissitudes" -- thrown in, perhaps to reassure the writer that while she may be friendly with these country bumpkins, she still has a city vocabulary. And there's even a split infinitive -- "to always speak" -- thrown in, both to leave doubt about the meaning and to infuriate further any intelligent readers with the patience to wade through this stuff.

An article in the Sunday Styles section of today's New York Times refers to "the Food Allergy Initiative, a nonprofit charity." Is there such a thing as a for-profit charity?

Not-So New Majority: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on Prince George's County, Maryland. In one sentence, the article refers to "a new black majority in this one-time white county." In the next sentence, the article reports that "The latest census figures confirm that Prince George's County's black majority has increased to 63 percent, up 12 points from a decade ago." In other words, the "new" black majority is at least a decade old.

An editorial in today's New York Times refers to the "decidedly hard-right cast of President Bush's judicial nominations." Here's what the Times's own editorial page said on May 11: "President's Bush's initial batch of nominations for the nation's Circuit Courts of Appeal has turned out to be more eclectic and conciliatory than most people expected. It contains fewer hard-right legal activists than expected and also includes a number of mainstream conservatives who will be acceptable to Senate Democrats." Two of Mr. Bush's initial judicial nominees were originally nominated by President Clinton. It's a sure sign of the illogic of the Times editorial positions that they are not even internally consistent. If there's some new information that has come out about the judicial nominees that makes it clear they have a "hard-right cast," the Times could share it with its readers and explain why it was wrong in its initial assessment of the nominees. Instead, the paper just contradicts itself. Maybe it thinks its own readers are too dumb or forgetful to notice.

An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports that "American Muslim leaders walked out of a White House meeting in protest on Thursday after a Secret Service agent suddenly removed a Muslim student from their group, without explanation."

The New York Times article makes it sound as if the Secret Service behaved unreasonably. The removed student is described in the Times as an intern for Rep. David Bonior and as the son of Sami Al-Arian. Sami Al-Arian is described as "a professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida and a pro-Palestinian organizer who has campaigned against the government's use of secret evidence to detain political organizers in the United States."

In fact, that's an oddly benign description of Sami Al-Arian and his activities at the University of South Florida. A more neutral dispatch, from the Associated Press, reported last summer that Sami Al-Arian "headed up a Palestinian think tank at the University of South Florida that investigators believe aided the Palestinian Islamic Jihad." That dispatch noted further that Sami Al-Arian "invoked his 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination 99 times Monday in a hearing to free his brother-in-law." The AP article also reported that "Another member of the USF-affiliated World and Islam Studies Enterprise, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, left Tampa in 1995 and assumed a leadership role in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."

According to Congressional testimony given by Steven Emerson, an expert on terrorism, an affidavit of FBI Special Agent M. Barry Carmody stated: "Located and seized at the residence of Sami Al-Arian on November 20, 1995, was a letter written by Sami Al-Arian in which Al-Arian is soliciting funds for the Islamic movement in Palestine. This solicitation letter states that despite obstacles, the Islamic movement operates at a time when combined scores of Arab armies fail to accomplish its goal, and the Hamas brothers continue improving. This letter also appeals for support for the Jihad so that the people will not lose faith in Islam. As noted previously, the Jihad has been declared an international terrorist organization by the Department of State."

The Tampa Tribune reported in May of 1995 that Sami Al-Arian "is listed as editor-in-chief of a magazine published by the Islamic Committee for Palestine. The magazine includes articles that solicit money for the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, two international terrorist groups." The Tribune also reported that a conference organized by the Al-Arian-headed Islamic Committee for Palestine included Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, considered the spiritual leader of the militants who bombed the World Trade Center.

Now, of course, the son of Sami Al-Arian should not be held responsible for his father's actions. His father, who denies any connection to terrorism, has not been charged or convicted of any crime. His activities, however objectionable or repugnant, may well be protected under the First Amendment freedoms of speech, of religion, of the press, of assembly and of petition. But given the bloody record of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it's funny that the Times frames the news in this article as the fact that Muslims are upset that Sami Al-Arian's son was removed from a White House meeting "without explanation." More newsworthy is the fact that, as the Times article notes in passing lower down in the article, Sami Al-Arian -- not his son, but Sami Al-Arian -- last week "was among a group of Muslim leaders admitted to the White House for a political briefing." With Secretary of State Colin Powell posturing about his support for a "cease-fire" and peace in the Middle East, isn't it newsworthy that a man linked to determined enemies of Israel and America is getting invited to the White House?

Unregulated: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the Shays-Meehan campaign-finance bill. The Times says the bill "has at its heart a ban on unregulated donations to the national political parties known as soft money." As Smartertimes.com has noted again and again, this is just false. Soft money currently is not "unregulated." It is unlimited, in that there is no cap on the amount of contributions. But there exists an entire agency, the Federal Election Commission, which enforces among other things the regulation that such contributions must be publicly disclosed. The disclosure requirement is a regulation. Soft money isn't "unregulated." It's just not regulated as much as Rep. Shays, Rep. Meehan, and the Times's unregulated editorial board want to regulate it.

Principal: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on military base closings. "Republicans will have trouble dismissing the process as politicized when its principle advocate is a president from their own party," the Times reports. The word the Times wants there is "principal," not "principle."

After a New York Times headline that said, "Almost as One, Europe Condemns Execution" and another one that said, "Death Penalty Falls From Favor," the newspaper on June 20 ran an unusual editor's note acknowledging that "Because of editing errors, headlines on both articles reflected only one side of the argument." Now the newspaper is at it again, this time with a dispatch from The Hague in the international section of today's New York Times. The Times article today describes a ruling by the "International Court of Justice" in favor of Germany and against America in a case related to the death penalty, and it reports, "The decision against the United States was given wide television coverage across Western Europe, where opposition to the death penalty is strong and at times feeds anti-Americanism."

"Strong" is rather vague. What is exactly the public sentiment in Western Europe about the death penalty? Joshua Micah Marshall wrote about this last summer in The New Republic: "In fact, opinion polls show that Europeans and Canadians crave executions almost as much as their American counterparts do. It's just that their politicians don't listen to them. . . Differences in the way survey questions are framed complicate direct comparisons with Europe. (European polls sometimes pose the question in terms of the death penalty for terrorism, for genocide, for depraved sexual crimes, and so forth.) But, even if you ask the death-penalty question in the more restricted sense that Americans generally understand it--'Do you support the death penalty for aggravated murder?'--you find very few European countries where the public clearly opposes it, and there are a number where support is very strong. In Britain, the world headquarters of Amnesty International, opinion polls have shown that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the population favors the death penalty--about the same as in the United States. In Italy, which has led the international fight against capital punishment for much of the last decade, roughly half the population wants it reinstated. In France, clear majorities continued to back the death penalty long after it was abolished in 1981; only last year did a poll finally show that less than 50 percent wanted it restored. There is barely a country in Europe where the death penalty was abolished in response to public opinion rather than in spite of it."

The Times today seems to be pulling the same stunt it did in yesterday's paper when it asserted that the North American Free Trade Agreement is "politically unpopular" without mentioning the polls showing a significant plurality of the public supports it. Today, the newspaper says that opposition to the death penalty is "strong" without mentioning that support for the death penalty is often even stronger, at least by the measure of opinion polls. It's enough to make a reader wonder whether the Times's assessments of public opinion are driven by reality or by the newspaper's own wishful thinking.

To read today's New York Times coverage of yesterday's Republican primary in the race for New Jersey governor, you'd think the election wasn't to be chief executive officer, but chief abortion officer. In the second paragraph of a front-page news article, the Times describes the winner of the primary, Bret Schundler, as "an ardent opponent of abortion." An editorial refers to Mr. Schundler's "fervent opposition to abortion rights." A short article in the metro section refers no less than four times to Mr. Schundler's "condemning abortion," "capturing the loyalty of anti-abortion conservatives," "condemning abortions" and support for curtailing abortion rights if he could build a majority for such a move. And if Times readers still haven't gotten the point, there is yet a fourth item in today's paper that dwells on Mr. Schundler's views on abortion, an "Our Towns" column that runs in the metro section.

Never mind that Mr. Schundler is on the record as saying that "reasonable Americans may disagree over the question of when human life should be constitutionally protected." Never mind that, as the Times itself reports low down in one inside story, "During the race, Mr. Schundler emphasized bread-and-butter issues like cutting taxes and ending parkway tolls."

Chestnuts in the Fire: The Times metro section's news article on Mr. Schundler's victory event reports that Mr. Schundler favored "standard Republican chestnuts like supporting lower taxes." Webster's Second Unabridged defines "chestnut" in this sense as "an old, worn-out joke or phrase; a cliche; also, a very familiar story, plot, or piece of music." Smartertimes.com is looking forward to the day when the Times refers to "standard Democratic chestnuts like supporting health care for the elderly and protecting the environment." Why is it the Democrats have "issues," but Republicans have "chestnuts"?

Porn Overkill: A near-second to the New York Times overkill on the Schundler-abortion issue this morning is the treatment the paper gives to the crucial public policy question of whether Justice Clarence Thomas rented pornographic videos. This matter consumes a full-length news article and a column on the op-ed page. The news story is impenetrable, filled with convoluted sentences like, "Mr. Paoletta denied Mr. Brock's statement that Mr. Paoletta had told Mr. Brock that Justice Thomas had often rented pornographic movies from a store named Graffiti Video when Anita Hill worked for him." Where is the chorus of those defending President Clinton for his "private" behavior and decrying the politics of personal destruction when you need them?

Anti-Immigration: A "Trends" item in the Workplace section of today's New York Times carries a quote from a man identified as "research director of the Center for Immigration Studies." He claims that the latest immigrants were "less educated relative to natives than previous immigrants" and that they drove down wages for people at the bottom of the economic ladder by 7 percent in real terms over the past decade. The "Center for Immigration Studies" sounds innocuous and self-explanatory enough, but in fact it is an advocacy group whose own Web site acknowledges that it is animated by a "low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants." The Times might have shared that information with its readers so that they could weigh the center's claims with appropriate skepticism.

Unpopular: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on a House vote to restrict Mexican trucks. "Its passage underscores how politically unpopular the North American Free Trade Agreement is," the Times reports. Just how unpopular is NAFTA? A 1996 Time/CNN poll asked "Should America withdraw from NAFTA?" Thirty-four percent of respondents said yes and 48 percent said no. When Gallup asked in May 2000 about NAFTA's impact on the United States, Americans chose "good impact" over "bad impact" by 47% to 39%. The Times seems misinformed about "how politically unpopular the North American Free Trade Agreement is."

Ending Corporate Welfare: The New York Times has a lead editorial today titled "Ending Corporate Welfare" railing against "subsidies to business." No word in the editorial about the massive special tax breaks the Times Company has extracted from the city and state of New York for its new headquarters tower near Times Square. Talk about corporate welfare. The Times seems to be against corporate welfare when it goes to shipbuilders in Trent Lott's home state, but for corporate welfare when it goes to subsidize its own shareholders.

How left-leaning is the New York Times news coverage? Even more left-leaning than the newspaper's famously liberal editorials, at least to judge by an article in the national section of today's New York Times about President Bush's nominees to the federal bench. The Times reports in its national section today that, on Mr. Bush's first 11 judicial nominees, "the Democrats, then in the minority, seemed inclined to go along, even though many of the 11 were strong conservatives and seemed to confirm that Mr. Bush was determined to reinforce a rightward tilt in the nation's courts."

Oh, so the Times news department thinks that Mr. Bush's first 11 judicial nominees "seemed to confirm that Mr. Bush was determined to reinforce a rightward tilt in the nation's courts." How far-out is that assessment? Here's what the Times's own editorial page said on May 11: "President's Bush's initial batch of nominations for the nation's Circuit Courts of Appeal has turned out to be more eclectic and conciliatory than most people expected. It contains fewer hard-right legal activists than expected and also includes a number of mainstream conservatives who will be acceptable to Senate Democrats." The Associated Press reported on May 10 that "Democrats appeared content with the choices after Bush withheld the planned nominations of at least four conservatives to avoid Democratic objections, and added Roger Gregory and Barrington Parker - two blacks who had been tapped by former President Clinton."

The Times news article today goes on to quote Senator Schumer as saying, "Now that we're in the majority, I'm sure that the next 11 will not be as conservative." Someone should tell Senator Schumer and the Times news department that, by the reckoning of the Times editorialists and the Democrats as reported by the AP, the first 11 choices weren't all that conservative. Two of them had been nominated by President Clinton.

'Shoddy Journalism': An article in the international section of today's New York Times reports on a speech last night in New York by Ariel Sharon. The Times says the speech was to the "America-Israel Friendship Committee"; in fact, the correct name of the group is the America-Israel Friendship League. Worse, the article takes out of context a comment by a Sharon adviser, Dore Gold. Mr. Gold tells Smartertimes.com that he had been contrasting the Palestinian Arab practice of targeting Israeli civilians to the Israeli practice, before the "cease-fire," of targeting Palestinian Arab terrorist kingpins. The Times instead makes it sound like Mr. Gold was somehow acknowledging or commenting on the public telephone explosion that killed a Palestinian Arab militant on Sunday -- an explosion about which Mr. Gold had declined to comment to the Times. Mr. Gold tells Smartertimes.com that the Times use of his truncated quote is an example of "shoddy journalism."

Absent Fathers: The "Health & Fitness" page in the Science Times section of today's New York Times carries an article under the headline "Love, Anger and Guilt: Coping With a Child's Chronic Illness." The article begins by saying, "When a child is chronically ill, the whole family feels the pain, particularly the parents" -- and then it goes on to tell the stories of five mothers. If the Times wants to write a story about mothers of chronically ill or disabled children, that's fine. But to bill it in the first paragraph as an article about "mothers and fathers" and "brothers and sisters," and then to focus only on the mothers seems like a bait-and-switch.

A front-page, above -the-fold article in today's New York Times reports on families who are coming up against the new five-year limit on federal welfare benefits. The second paragraph of the article describes three welfare recipients facing the cutoff. One is described as "one of two working parents in a family of five who were getting by on low wages and their small cash aid supplement." Another is described as "the sole parent in a family of six, who is still not working for pay, but stretches reduced benefits with dried beans and the bread she bakes." A third is described as a woman "whose battles with cancer, asthma and sickle-cell anemia are still interfering with her ability to participate in workfare and support her teenage daughter."

These are sympathetic, tear-jerking portraits, and a reader who stops reading at the front-page portion of the article is likely to agree with the article's passionate final quote -- "you cannot just abandon somebody." Here the mean welfare reformers are about to abandon the poor "working parents," the bread-baking "sole parent," the cancer victim.

You have to read all the way to the 15th paragraph of the story to find that one of the "working parents" cited by the Times "went to prison for a 1990 drug conviction." He was in for three years. The Times doesn't give any more details on the crime, but it sure is interesting the way that front-page thumbnail description reads "working parent" rather than ex-convict. This isn't to suggest that the children of convicted criminals should be without government support and condemned to poverty. But somehow welfare reform advocates -- particularly Mayor Giuliani -- and time limits seem a more convenient place for the Times to place the blame than with individual parents.

As for the bread-baking mom, you have to read all the way to the 29th paragraph to find a reference to "her absent husband." Why is the husband absent? Does he contribute to the children's support? The Times doesn't say. After all, why blame the absent husband when there's a more convenient villain available in the form of Mayor Giuliani and those welfare limits?

The cancer victim's case is another one with an absent father. We are told that she "had fled domestic violence when her two daughters were little." Was the alleged domestic violence perpetrator tried and convicted? If so, the pattern emerging is not one primarily about welfare time limits but one about the separate but related social problem of supporting the families of criminals. If the father is not in prison, is he paying child support? Again, the Times doesn't tell us anything about the absent father, who one might think owes his children more than the taxpayers do. Finally, near the end of this long story, readers learn that the cancer victim's government assistance may not be cut off at all -- it will just be converted from welfare to SSI, a Social Security program that supports the disabled.

Smartertimes.com supposes the Times deserves a bit of credit for including the facts about convictions, absent fathers and Social Security somewhere in the article where a diligent reader can notice them. But by framing the story in terms of welfare time limits, the Times obscures and downplays the issues of crime and absent fathers. And of course, there's no mention in the Times of the way the old welfare program actually encouraged absentee fatherhood by providing financial incentives for it.

Anti-Development: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the battle against housing development in Maryland. In a 20-paragraph article, a mere four paragraphs are devoted to the pro-development argument. The other 16 are devoted to opponents of development describing the new housing as "a cancer" and accusing the farmers who sell to developers of "profiteering." It's not exactly an even-handed dispatch. If a newspaper is going to compare something or someone to cancer, the least the paper can do is to give that phenomenon or person a reasonable chance at self-defense.

Begging the Question: An article in the business section of today's New York Times reports on Internet domain names. The Times writes, "Moreover, it is not clear how many companies and trademark owners eligible to participate in early registration processes are aware that queues are forming for the new names. Which itself begs the question: will the new domains catch on as alternatives, or become the virtual equivalent of a modern house in a colonial neighborhood?"

This is a misuse of the phrase "beg the question." As the entry on the phrase in the Times's own stylebook states, "beg the question does not mean pose the issue or avoid the issue. To beg the question is to assume the truth of the proposition one is trying to prove."

As part of its continuing campaign against the Bush tax cuts, the New York Times op-ed page today prints an article complaining that 34 million American adults will get no tax rebate checks this summer, and that another 17 million won't get the full rebate of $300 per person. "The tax rebate program is only the most recent example of the federal government's awarding special preferences to payers of the income tax," the Times op-ed claims.

What are these "special preferences"? The op-ed goes on to explain: "People who donate to charities are permitted to take tax deductions offsetting the contributions, but the deduction can reduce only income taxes. If the taxpayer makes a contribution to a charity but owes no income tax, the deduction is completely lost. The same is true for virtually every deduction found in the tax code, including those for medical care, home mortgages, casualty losses and countless other everyday costs."

Well, by this strange definition, people who don't itemize on their taxes also receive "special preferences," because they are allowed to take the standard deduction even if they didn't make charitable donations or mortgage interest payments that added up to the amount of the standard deduction. In other words, in some cases of people who donate to charities but who do not pay income tax, the deduction is not "completely lost," it is subsumed in the standard deduction. Many people who pay no income tax are already getting substantial direct benefits from the government -- disability payments, subsidized housing, food stamps, the earned-income tax credit -- that far outweigh the value of any foregone tax deductions.

The Times op-ed says, "Greater fairness in taxation would require major changes in the tax structure, like allowing most taxpayers to obtain deductions currently tied only to the income tax." But fairness, at least outside the confines of the Times op-ed page, is a two-way street. For all the talk about fairness, the article never mentions the progressive rate structure of the American tax code. Is it fair for high-income taxpayers to pay higher rate on their last dollar earned than low-income taxpayers do? In fact, the Times suggestion wouldn't necessarily increase "fairness." It would probably have the effect of taking more money from the people who earn lots of it and giving it to the people who earn less of it. The Times article might consider this "fairness," but it often doesn't seem very fair to the high-income people who worked hard to earn the money in the first place. Proponents of a flat tax could use the "fairness" concept to argue for a tax code in which everyone, rich or poor, pays the same tax rate. But that is not what the Times means by "fairness."

The article concludes: "at the very least, when Congress gives a one-time rebate to share the surplus and give a boost to the economy, that rebate should apply to all taxpayers, not just those who happen to pay income tax."

Smartertimes.com has nothing against payroll tax relief. But the Times has stood athwart the centerpiece of President Bush's plan for payroll tax relief: a partial privatization of Social Security.

Lost in New Jersey: Gene Baumgaertner of Florham Park, N.J., notices that in the New Jersey section of today's New York Times, there is an article referring to Moorestown, N.J., and a map accompanying the article showing the location of Morristown, N.J., Moorestown in the article, Morristown on the map.

Note: Smartertimes.com is in Maine this weekend and is operating off the online edition of the New York Times.