An article in the metro section of today's New York Times gives ridiculous weight and prominence to complaints by extremist anti-Israel groups against a Muslim scholar. The Times describes these groups as "prominent," and delivers to readers in all apparent seriousness the complaints against the scholar: "As evidence, some of them point to Mr. Duran's association with some controversial figures in Muslim-American circles. These include Steven Emerson, a journalist who made a television documentary accusing some Muslim-American groups of acting as fronts for terrorist organizations, and Daniel Pipes, the director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia, who has been identified with pro-Israeli positions."

This is a newsworthy story, but for reasons other than the ones the Times is writing about. The news is that these "prominent" Muslim groups are so extreme that even mere "association" with figures like Mr. Emerson and Mr. Pipes is enough to make a scholar unacceptable to them. The Times article doesn't mention that Mr. Emerson was a major source for the recent Times series on Osama Bin Laden, and the Times also doesn't mention that Mr. Pipes has contributed to the Times op-ed page. And what a strange phrase: "has been identified with pro-Israeli positions." Has "been identified" by whom? What are the positions? Pipes' main position, from Smartertimes.com's reading of many of his books and articles, is that Israel has a right to exist in peace within secure borders as a Jewish homeland. By that standard, the United Nations Security Council and the U.S. State Department have "been identified with pro-Israeli positions."

The article quotes the Muslim scholar dismissing his critics as a "small minority of radicals and militants" who are not interested in getting along with Jews. The Times, by placing the article on the front of the metro section, by describing the scholar's critics as "prominent," and by treating the comments of the critics so uncritically and respectfully, essentially sides against the scholar on this point.

Finally, for a kind of third-party opinion opposing the Muslim scholar, the Times relies on Yvonne Haddad, whom it describes as "a Christian who is professor of history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown University." But if the Times is going to note that Mr. Pipes "has been identified with pro-Israeli positions," shouldn't it also then note that Ms. Haddad has been identified with anti-Israeli positions? Here's Ms. Haddad in a July 2000 press release from the hard-left "Institute for Public Accuracy": "What the Palestinians need is independence, not autonomy. Their leaders should not be strong-armed into accepting mini-reservations. . . .There has to be a real Arab Jerusalem. Any agreement should provide for re-settlement of Palestinian refugees and compensation to them; otherwise there will not be any peace, because the current situation is based on injustice."

Inexplicably: A dispatch in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on the appearance of New York mayoral candidates, including Michael Bloomberg, at a lunch sponsored by an abortion rights group. The Times reports, "Inexplicably, Mr. Bloomberg, who has not officially declared his candidacy, told reporters: 'You shouldn't turn this into a political thing. Why don't you focus on something to raise money for women's reproductive rights? Maybe that would be a little more useful.'"

Since the Times news department is of the opinion that Mr. Bloomberg's comments are "inexplicable," perhaps Smartertimes.com can help by offering a few possible explanations. Mr. Bloomberg could not be really running for mayor. He could be really running, but he could subconsciously not want to run, and therefore he could be saying silly things to the press to sabotage his own candidacy. He could genuinely believe that the press's focus on politics was distracting from the intended message of the event. He could believe the press is unpopular and that he can win votes by insulting it. He could believe that one reason the press is unpopular and that he can win votes by insulting it is that it inserts unwarranted editorial comments like "inexplicably" before the quotes of politicians in news articles that are ostensibly nonpartisan and unbiased.

Iran's Isolation: This is from a dispatch from Moscow in the international section of today's New York Times: "While critics point to the danger of selling arms that could be turned on Russia, Mr. Putin contends that Moscow can help Iran out of its isolation, something the United States has long sought to achieve." That's just false. The United States has imposed a trade embargo and secondary oil sanctions against Iran. The United States has long sought to achieve the end of Iran's sponsorship of terrorism, its programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, its human rights abuses and its efforts to undermine peace in the Middle East. An end to isolation has been offered as an incentive for taking those steps. But to describe helping Iran out of its isolation as an American foreign policy goal in the absence of those other factors is just misleading to readers. The actual American foreign policy, until Iran changes its behavior, has been to isolate Iran, not to help it out of its isolation.

Cuba Scholarships: The New York Times, in its "world briefing" column, today reprints what is essentially a Castro press release. The item begins, "Eight United States students from poor families began studying medicine in Cuba yesterday thanks to six-year full scholarships offered by President Fidel Castro." Nothing in the article says anything about how backward the Cuban medical system is compared to America's, or how scholarships are available to poor medical students in America. The item might as well have been written by Herbert Matthews.

Tripping on Tripp: An article in the "national briefing" column of today's New York Times incompletely states the results of a court ruling yesterday involving Sexgate scandal figure Linda Tripp. The section of an AP dispatch printed by the Times reports that a federal judge ruled that Ms. Tripp can't sue the White House. But other non-Times coverage, including a Reuters dispatch, noted that the judge ruled that Ms. Tripp could go ahead with the portion of her suit that is directed against the Pentagon and unnamed former Clinton administration officials. While the Times headline was "Judge Rules Against Linda Tripp," the headline on the Reuters story was "Judge Allows Linda Tripp to Sue Over 'Harassment.'"

Oakes's Engagement: The New York Times obituary of John B. Oakes says, "The recipient of many awards, he was widely praised for personal integrity and for what admirers called the courage of his editorials in defense of civil liberties, human rights, and an engaged foreign policy, particularly their early opposition to the war in Vietnam."

What an odd turn of phrase -- "an engaged foreign policy, particularly their early opposition to the war in Vietnam." It seemed to quite a few people back then that opposition to the war in Vietnam was advocating an American foreign policy that was disengaged.

Weekend Excursion: The Weekend section of today's New York Times suggests a "weekend excursion" to New Haven. Smartertimes.com tried really hard to avoid snickering at this in Harvard-style condescension, but the temptation was ultimately irresistible. It's still not clear to Smartertimes.com, after reading the article, why anyone who lives in New York City would take a "weekend excursion" to New Haven.

Yesterday's Smartertimes.com criticized the New York Times' description of the split within the Republican Party over Communist China. A front-page article in today's Times takes another pass at it, reporting that "Republicans on Capitol Hill are split between a pro-business wing and more hard-line lawmakers concerned with China's military intentions and human rights record." The same description could apply to the Democrats on Capitol Hill. And the pro-business wing argues (not always persuasively) that it, too, is concerned about China's human rights record, but that it believes that the best way to improve it is by increasing the standard of living and the influence of the West in Communist China by expanding American trade there.

Still, the front-page description is more sensible than yesterday's, and more sensible than the one in today's "Washington Memo," which runs in the national section of the Times. The "Washington Memo" reports that "Mr. Bush's own party remains deeply split between those who would contain China's growing power and those who favor closer diplomatic ties and deeper and deeper economic engagement." (The Times really says "and deeper and deeper"; it's not a case of Smartertimes.com accidentally typing the words in twice.) In this description, the Republicans go from being merely "split" to being "deeply split." And it's hard to figure out what the Times means by saying some Republicans want "closer diplomatic ties" with Communist China. America already has full diplomatic relations with China. It's hard to see what closer diplomatic ties America could have with China, short of letting it into a formal treaty alliance, which Smartertimes.com isn't aware of any Republicans or Democrats seriously suggesting. Finally, as Smartertimes.com noted yesterday, the real China hawks among the Republicans and the Democrats don't simply want to "contain China's growing power"; they want to erode the power of the Communist regime there by ending it and expanding freedom. That policy isn't containment; it's rollback.

The New York Times this morning weighs in with its third long, prominently placed article in three days about the lack of black men in the New York City police department. All three articles have been informed by an overwhelming receptivity to a kind of simplistic, deterministic, quota-driven racial bean-counting. But today's installment, labeled "success story," takes the cake. What is the "success story," in terms of race and policing? Well, according to the New York Times, apparently, it is Boston, where "the proportion of blacks in uniform approximates the proportion of black residents in the city."

The force's "integration success," the Times tells us, comes from the proposition "that something approaching racial balancing -- a police force whose demographics match those of the city -- can improve not just the social climate but the effectiveness of the police as well."

This is achieved by requiring the police "to select recruits from a list that includes one minority candidate for every white one."

Imagine if these standards were applied to Jews in college admissions. Would the Times judge it a "success story" if the proportion of Jews in Ivy League colleges approximated the proportion of Jewish residents in America? And if that proportion were achieved by considering Jewish background at the expense of the other criteria used for college admissions, like test scores, essays, high school grades and teacher recommendations?

Or suppose the National Basketball Association suddenly decided that it was going to fill its teams by "racial balancing."

If the Boston police are a "success story," then the New York Times newspaper would have to be judged a "failure story." According to statistics released this week by the American Society of Newspaper Editors -- and not reported yet by the Times -- the New York Times journalistic staff was 16.2 percent minority in 2000. That's less of a "success" than the Wall Street Journal (17.1 percent), the Washington Post (19.5 percent), USA Today (18.7 percent) or the Los Angeles Times (20.3 percent). The Times newsroom has far fewer minorities than the New York population or the national population. The Times newsroom even has far fewer minorities than the New York Police Department. Yet that hasn't prevented the Times from publishing, by its own claim, "the world's most authoritative newspaper."

Of course, the police department is a government agency, while the Times is a business. Sometimes it is appropriate to hold the government and businesses to different standards, But there can also sometimes be problems when government agencies are held to different standards than businesses are; for instance, the civil service system can make it harder to fire incompetent employees in government than it would be in a private business. Still, the Times is out on a pretty long limb with this big, multi-part series on race and the police, and with judgmental language like "success story." You'd think they would have thought through some of these complexities before inflicting on readers -- from a mostly white newsroom -- a news article dubbing "racial balancing" (a euphemism for quotas) -- a "success story."

Estate Tax Ad: When some of the richest Americans took out an advertisement in the New York Times opposing the repeal of the death tax, the Times covered it with a news article on its front page. Today's New York Times carries a full-page ad from African American business leaders who support the elimination of the death tax; the Times news columns have no coverage of it at all. Smartertimes.com doesn't think the Times should write a news article about every ad it runs, and it can see the man-bites-dog newsworthiness of rich people backing the death tax. But surely there's a similar man-bites-dog newsworthiness in the fact that these prominent blacks, members of one of the most loyal Democratic constituent groups, are siding with the Republicans on the death tax repeal.

Blame America First: A front-page news article in today's New York Times about the captured American pilots in Communist China reports, "American and Chinese officials are worried about damage to relations from this episode, the latest in a series of strains including the 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's war against Yugoslavia, American allegations of Chinese nuclear spying, President Bush's plans for a national missile defense, weapons sales to Taiwan and American condemnation of human rights violations here." It's interesting the way the Times phrases this so that every one of the "strains" has been caused by America. In other words, the "strain" isn't the Chinese human rights violations, but the American condemnation of them. And it's not the Chinese nuclear spying, but the American allegation of it. The article also curiously omits the "strain" caused by the Chinese Communist effort to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into the 1996 Democratic effort to re-elect Bill Clinton.

Containment Versus Rollback: Another front-page article in today's Times about the Communist China situation reports that President Bush "is caught between one wing of his party, propelled by American business interests, that wants deep economic engagement with China and another that wants to contain China's power." This mischaracterizes the views of many of the American hawks on China. The real hawks don't simply want to "contain China's power"; they want to end Communist rule there and help spread freedom. It's probably hard for the Times even to conceive of such a view, but the newspaper might understand it if it actually went out and interviewed some Republicans. Arguably, such a rollback plan is actually in keeping with long-term interests of American business.

Here's how a front-page news article in today's New York Times describes President Bush's position on campaign finance legislation: "while President Bush has left open the door to signing any campaign finance bill that 'improves the system,' he sidestepped a question last week about whether he could support a bill banning soft money. The bill that passed the Senate today ignores many of the principles Mr. Bush said he wanted to see in the legislation, and the White House had no immediate comment on what the president was likely to do."

Fair enough. Now, here's how a "news analysis" article in the national section of today's New York Times describes the president's position: "while the president has suggested that he would sign the bill sponsored by Senator John McCain of Arizona and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Mr. Gilmore finds himself on the other side, condemning the measure."

What's a reader to do? One Times report says the McCain-Feingold bill ignores the president's principles and that the White House isn't commenting on what the president will do. The other Times report says the president has suggested he would sign the bill and that someone condemning the bill is on another side than the side the president is on. Aren't there any editors at the Times who read these articles before they go in and try to catch these contradictions?

If what's going on is that the president is sending mixed signals on the bill, one well-accepted journalistic approach would be for the Times to report that in both articles. Instead, the Times approach seems to be to print two different articles, one saying that the president is sending negative signals and another saying the president is sending positive signals.

A brief article in the business section of today's New York Times discusses racial diversity in the newspaper industry. The Times passes along without even raising an eyebrow the following: "Gilbert Bailon, the executive editor of The Dallas Morning News, said that increasing diversity would be difficult in a slowing economy. 'Fewer jobs are open,' he said. 'Papers are scaling back. The highly competitive people will be hired. But the numbers -- increasing them is going to be hard.'"

Talk about your soft bigotry of low expectations. The suggestion seems to be that minority hires are some sort of drag on a newspaper's performance, a luxury that can only be afforded in flush times. The truth is that in a slowing economy lots of newspapers offer their highly paid senior employees buyout packages and wind up replacing them with cheaper new hires. That actually might increase racial diversity. And if racial diversity is as important to economic competitiveness as its advocates claim it is, tough economic times might be exactly the moment to place a greater emphasis on minority hiring.

The other phenomenon that goes unremarked upon by the Times is that the newspapers use the economy as an excuse for their lack of racial diversity no matter what state the economy is in. In fact, the Times article paraphrases one expert as saying that "during the go-go days of the dot-com boom, 'people who didn't feel appreciated in the newsroom or invested in the newsroom took advantage of other opportunities.'"

So, in a bad economy, newspapers have few minorities because "fewer jobs are open." In a good economy, newspapers have few minorities because the minorities left and "took advantage of other opportunities." It's enough to make one suspect that the economy isn't the real explanation for what is going on here.

Smartertimes.com shares the skepticism expressed in Jason Riley's article in the April issue of Commentary with respect to the notion that race is, as Riley puts it "a stand-in for an individual's experiences, ideas and outlook." This is the idea that undergirds much of the obsession with racial statistics in occupations like journalism. Still, it is an idea that suffuses the Times' approach to the topic. So it's funny to see the New York Times let the newspaper industry get away with the sort of excuses that, if offered up by, say, the New York City Police Department, would be -- are! -- the topic of a front-page special report in the Times.

Wrong Reason: A dispatch from Jordan in today's Times reports that "Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries with diplomatic ties with Israel, although neither has an ambassador there at the moment because of heavy opposition in their own countries to any such links." Not true. Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia all have diplomatic ties with Israel at varying levels. And the description of the cause of the lack of ambassadors from Egypt and Jordan is laughably charitable to the Egyptians and Jordanians. Since when did the governments of these countries become so deferential to public opinion?

Can't Spell: A dispatch in today's New York Times from London about the Iraqi opposition refers to an opposition leader as "Ahmed Chalaby." In fact he spells his name in English as Ahmad Chalabi.

Here's a sentence from an editorial in today's New York Times. "The rushed process suggests an awareness by Mr. Bush and the Republican Senate leadership that they need to pass the tax cut before Americans find out about it." This is just priceless. George W. Bush spent millions of dollars on campaign advertisements trying to make sure Americans found out about his tax cut. The New York Times has printed hundreds of news articles and dozens of editorials and opinion pieces about it. There were three presidential debates in the general election in which Mr. Bush discussed his tax-cutting plans, and more debates during the primary season. Does the Times editorial board really believe that the American people are so ignorant, detached or stupid that they haven't found out yet about the Bush tax cut? It's hard to square that belief with the Times' editorial support for campaign finance "reform" that would limit the money that political parties and independent groups could spend on informing Americans about tax cuts and other policy and political issues.

Sulzberger's Salary: The business section of today's New York Times devotes acres of space to a "special report" on executive pay. It's funny how, while skewering a number of highly paid executives and their companies, the newspaper omits any mention of its own executive compensation practices. Reuters reported on March 6 that the chairman of the New York Times Company, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who is also the publisher of the New York Times, "received a pay compensation package valued at about $4.7 million in 2000, up from $3.7 million in the previous year."

Denise Rich's Shoes: The Sunday Styles section of today's New York Times includes an interview with Denise Rich, the Democratic Party donor who asked President Clinton to pardon her ex-husband, fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich. Denise Rich is a person that serious reporters at the Times and other newspapers have lots of questions for. They could ask her why she chose to take the Fifth Amendment in the congressional probe of the pardon. They could ask her more about her relationship with President Clinton.

Instead, here is how the Times handles an encounter between a representative of its news department and Ms. Rich, as reported in today's paper: "Mother Rich was soon installed at the table. She's a forcefully charming sort of person who, when quizzed about the coveted shoes, took one off and held it over her plate to squint and read the instep. 'Versace,' she said. She beamed at her daughter, who wore bright red lipstick, purple and gold eye shadow, purple acrylic hair extensions rolled Princess Leia style on each side of her face, and multi-colored glitter. 'She just lives in another dimension,' Denise Rich said. 'I don't know where she gets it from. I'm afraid to mix colors and patterns. For her it all works.'" If this Times reporter was allowed to hang out with Denise Rich and interview her on the condition that no questions be asked about the pardons and the donations, then the Times should disclose it to readers.

If the Times asked about the pardons and Denise Rich refused to answer, then that, too, should be disclosed to readers. Otherwise the newspaper looks like it is buttering up Ms. Rich in the hope of obtaining a more substantive interview with her in the future. Or the newspaper looks like it is displaying a strange lack of curiosity about the Rich pardon and Denise Rich's involvement in winning it.

An article in the Arts & Ideas section of today's New York Times mentions a "lecture to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative public policy group that publishes the monthly City Journal."

City Journal is, of course, a quarterly, not a monthly. Those interested in cities, including the editor of Smartertimes.com, appreciate the publication for its thoughtful analysis and in-depth reporting on urban affairs. It's based in New York City. And it's just astonishing that the Times can't manage to report accurately how often it comes out.

Bollinger Blunder: The national section of today's New York Times includes a profile of the president of the University of Michigan, Lee Bollinger. The profile strangely omits any mention of Mr. Bollinger's role in the controversy over the speech code adopted by the University of Michigan in 1988. The code was later thrown out by a court as unconstitutional. Earlier this year, while Mr. Bollinger was under consideration for the presidency of Harvard, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote a column examining Mr. Bollinger's role in the speech code matter. The Times profile has room for a mention of Mr. Bollinger's time in the Boston Marathon and the name of his yellow Labrador, but apparently didn't have space to discuss the free speech issue.

In an editorial this morning opposing the death penalty for the Oklahoma City bomber, the New York Times slips into a pattern it has been using more frequently lately: "This page opposes capital punishment, and believes the surest way to punish Mr. McVeigh would have been life imprisonment without parole. That would have robbed him of the deluded martyrdom he seeks with execution."

As Mickey Kaus of Kausfiles.com noted recently about another Times editorial, "Instead of troubling its readers with arguments, it cited authority. . . the authority of ... itself." As Kaus says, "It's nice the Times is convinced it's right! Now how about convincing us?"

There are some good arguments against the death penalty, mainly concerning the inability to reverse mistakes once it is administered (and in any system, especially a government-run one, there are likely to be mistakes.) But the arguments the Times attempts to make after trying the old "this page . . . believes" gambit are weak.

The claim that life imprisonment without parole is "surer" punishment than execution is a strange one. What could be more sure than the electric chair or lethal injection? There are sometimes hitches in executions, but does the Times really think that that the government is not going to be able to manage the technical feat of putting McVeigh to death? If the lack of sureness is the result of the extended appeals process available to capital defendants, would the Times prefer to curtail those appeal rights?

Then there is the business about robbing McVeigh of "deluded martyrdom." What better way to rob him of his sense of deluded martyrdom than to kill him? It depends on your eschatology, but Smartertimes.com believes that if the Times really wants to rob McVeigh of his sense of righteous victimization, or of any other sense he has, putting him to death would be a surer way of doing it than letting him stew in prison for years.

Lost in Kurdistan: A front-page dispatch in today's New York Times about smuggling between Iraq and Turkey refers first to the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Then, later on, it refers to something called the "Kurdistan Peoples Party." And in the next paragraph, it refers to Masoud Barzani as "the head of the Kurdish party," without identifying which party he heads. The reference to these two Kurdish parties without explaining the difference between them has the effect of confusing readers. Smartertimes.com knows that Mr. Barzani is the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, and it is aware of another Kurdish party called the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and of a Marxist terrorist group called the Kurdistan Workers Party, or the PKK. But the reference to the Kurdistan Peoples Party, followed quickly by the reference to Barzani as "head of the Kurdish party," is just mystifying.

Elite Travelers: An article in the business section of today's New York Times reports, "Until the Concorde was taken out of service last year after one crashed near Paris, the jets were only available to elite travelers paying extremely high prices." In fact, travel on the Concorde (which is what the Times writer seems to mean) was available to anyone, "elite" or not, willing to pay the price.

Cafi Society: Something must be wrong with the machine the New York Times uses to make the accent over the "e" at the end of the word "cafe." (Smartertimes.com has similar problems and doesn't bother with the accent mark.) The Times' problem is even more egregious; it turns the "e" into an "i." A "Public Lives" column in the metro section of today's Times refers to "an alternative cafi experience," and an article in the national section refers to "Chez Panisse Cafi in Berkeley."

A dispatch from Washington in today's New York Times illustrates the frenzy into which the newspaper's news department has been whipped in its support for the McCain-Feingold restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition. The news article begins: "WASHINGTON, March 28 -- The names of the 1,000 people on the guest list for tonight's huge political dinner were a secret. So were the identities of the large corporations and organizations that employ them. The party organizers refused to say how much money the wealthier guests had donated in exchange for their tickets."

The article, about a fundraiser for the National Republican Congressional Committee, reports that "much of that money came in the form of soft money," which the newspaper described as "unregulated, unrestricted political contributions."

The article also mentions a similar fundraiser held by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and noted that "neither committee would make its guest list public."

The sum of the impression left by the article is that there are "secret," "unregulated," multimillion-dollar donations flowing into the American political system. That is just a flat-out falsehood.

In fact, all contributions to party committees such as the NRCC or the DCCC in amounts greater than $50 are required by federal regulations to be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC makes these reports, with the names and addresses of the donors and the amounts they have given, available to the public, and even to New York Times reporters, in its reading room in Washington D.C. and on the Internet at www.fec.gov. The reading room even sometimes is open on the weekends and late at night soon after filing deadlines. There is a lag time of a few months between the fundraising event and the disclosure, but for the Times to describe these contributions as "secret" or "unregulated" is just false. There's no secret. The FEC is a large, tax-funded regulatory agency that exists to enforce these regulations against secret donations. Donors to political parties are even asked to name their employers so that "the identities of the large corporations and organizations that employ them" will be available to those seeking to analyze the possible connections between contributions and federal policies.

If the Times is too impatient to wait for disclosure through the existing FEC process, the newspaper might have devoted some of its massive reportorial resources to finding someone at the NRCC or the DCCC to leak the newspaper a list of those who attended the fundraiser. Probably any of the 1,000 dinner guests could have snagged it off a table being staffed by some intern.

The underlying assumption that the government should force the public disclosure of the names of adherents to a political party, or supporters of such a party, is itself arguably suspect. The Times has been agitating in its news and editorial columns for years against the efforts during the Cold War to make American Communists and former Communists "name names" of members of the Communist Party, U.S.A. Now the newspaper is complaining, in a news article, that federal law does not force the political parties to name names quickly enough. And the Communist Party, U.S.A. was a front for an evil enemy regime in the midst of a Cold War. Now the New York Times wants to impose more government regulations on the Democratic and Republican parties in peacetime than it supported on the Communists in wartime.

Successful: A front-page dispatch from Jerusalem in today's New York Times about Arab terrorist attacks against Israeli Jews reports, "The suicide bombing today was the third successful bombing in two days." This could just be a matter of taste, but the word "successful" is slightly jarring and probably inappropriate in this context.

A New York Times article labeled "news analysis" in the national section of today's paper describes the defeat of a campaign finance bill sponsored by Senator Hagel of Nebraska. The Times reports that "the measure was a colossal failure, losing the votes even of many Republicans."

How "many" Republicans actually voted against the Hagel bill? The "news analysis" doesn't say, but an accompanying, presumably "analysis-free," news article reports that on the vote on which Mr. Hagel lost the most Republicans, he lost 12 of them. Does 12 constitute "many"?

Well, one standard of comparison would be the House of Representatives vote on the rate-reduction part of the Bush tax cut. On that vote, the Times reported March 9, 2001, "In the end, no Republicans voted against the bill, and only 10 Democrats broke ranks and voted for it."

Yes, Smartertimes.com realizes there are more members of the House of Representatives than there are senators. Even so, it is interesting how the Times news department describes 10 Democrats breaking party ranks to support a tax cut as "only," and 12 Republicans breaking party ranks with the effect of advancing efforts to restrict free speech as "many." No doubt it's purely a coincidence that the Times has editorially opposed the Bush tax cut and editorially supported the alternative to the Hagel bill.

Smartertimes.com is eagerly awaiting the next time that 11 congressmen break party ranks on a bill. Eleven is on the cusp between 10 ("only") and 12 ("many"). Would the Times describe the 11 as "many" or "only"? Surely this is purely a question of math and not a question of what party they are from and whether the Times editorially supports or opposes the legislation at issue.

Late Again: The "Workplace" section of today's New York Times features an article that runs under the headline "W-2's Swallowed by Dot-Com Black Hole." This is old news to readers of the Los Angeles Times. On March 21, 2001, the L.A. Times's Karen Kaplan wrote virtually the same story on the front page in the paper's famous "Column One" slot. A headline and summary in the Los Angeles paper said, "Dot-Com Failures Tax Workers' Consciences; Some firms that folded last year have disappeared along with their records. With no W2s or 1099s, some laid-off employees are tempted to ignore their obligations to the IRS." Once again, the New York Times waddles in behind the Los Angeles Times. And, as usual, the New York paper fails to credit the L.A. paper for getting there first.

New Pragmatism: A dispatch from Hebron in the international section of today's New York Times reports, "His response, if any, could prove to be the first test of how Mr. Sharon negotiates between his old instincts as a warrior and his new ones as a leader who strives to be pragmatic." Ariel Sharon has always been a pragmatist, dating back at least to when he oversaw the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai under the Camp David agreement with Egypt some two decades ago.

An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on a debate over public access to chemical plant data. Environmental groups want the information to be public, but the government worries that terrorists could use the data to plan attacks, the Times says. The article quotes one advocate of additional disclosure of the information and describes him as "a spokesman for the public interest group OMB Watch." It's just ridiculous for the Times news department to label OMB Watch as a "public interest group." A quick check of the OMB Watch Web site shows that it is full of items with headlines like "Press Release: OMB Watch Opposes Bush Tax Cuts" and "OMB Watch strongly supports campaign finance reform, particularly the hard money contribution limits and soft money ban in the McCain-Feingold bill." The OMB Watch Web site also claims, "Over the last few years, OMB Watch, through its coalitional leadership, is credited with playing a crucial role in thwarting many of the proposals in the Contract with America, including the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution."

OMB Watch may claim that what it is doing is in the public interest, and the Times news department may be of the opinion that OMB Watch's activities are in the public interest. But there are millions of Americans who support the Bush tax cut, supported the Contract with America, and oppose the McCain-Feingold infringements on the First Amendment right of free speech. Those Americans are part of the public, too, and they, too, claim to be acting in the public interest. It would be more accurate and less slanted if, rather than calling OMB Watch a "public interest group," the Times would call it a private advocacy group that claims to have played a crucial role in blocking the Republican congressional agenda.

Slanted on Adarand: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments in a case about a government affirmative action program challenged by Adarand Constructors. The Times article reports that "In September, the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, said the program met the test and was constitutional." But the Times totally omits the fact that a federal district court judge, John Kane, had ruled that a Clinton administration effort to defend program was "fatuous" and "fallacious." Judge Kane noted that under the standards Adarand was challenging, "the Sultan of Brunei would qualify" as a "Disadvantaged Business Enterprise" for government preference purposes. The Times also neglects to mention that the 10th Circuit has twice before been reversed by the Supreme Court on the Adarand case, once in 1995 in Adarand v. Pena, and again in 2000 in Adarand v. Slater. The Times account is slanted toward the 10th Circuit and against Adarand -- and, thus, toward racial preferences in awarding government contracts.

Attack on the First Amendment: The final paragraph of an article in the Times national section today reports that "The Senate today also defeated, 40 to 56, a proposed constitutional amendment by Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, to give Congress the power to place limits on campaign spending." The fact that 40 senators are ready to dismantle the First Amendment strikes Smartertimes.com as big news, and it sure would be nice if the Times would name them, tell its readers whether New York's senators were among them, and put the article on the front page. Imagine how the Times would play the news if 40 senators had voted in favor of a Constitutional amendment to reverse another Supreme Court decision -- like the one, say, limiting the ability of states to restrict abortions, or limiting prayer in schools.

Friedman's Folly: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman today writes a suggested memo to Yasser Arafat from President Bush. "If you want to reverse the outcome of the 1967 war, and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, we will help you," Mr. Friedman suggests that Mr. Bush should say to Mr. Arafat. Smartertimes.com can't quite see what the American interest would be in turning Jerusalem's Old City back to exclusive Jordanian control and preventing Jews from worshipping at the Western Wall. That, after all, was the situation before the 1967 war, the war whose outcome Mr. Friedman is suggesting that the American president should help Mr. Arafat reverse.

Two front-page news articles in this morning's New York Times -- one on the Rev. Jesse Jackson, another on Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik -- quote Rev. Al Sharpton as a kind of expert outside commentator. A third article, about women in law school, mixes it up a bit and relies on Carol Gilligan and Lani Guinier.

The story about Rev. Jackson is notable for mischaracterizing the criticism of him. The Times describes the complaints as "concentrating mostly on the fact that Mr. Jackson's groups accept money from corporations he criticizes." It's not so much the fact that Rev. Jackson accepts the money that upsets his critics -- it's that, after he gets the money, his criticism of the corporations tends to quiet down or end.

The story about women in law school contains a quote from Professor Gilligan that seems to suggest that women lawyers are more important than women doctors. "Women may go to medical school, and that's good for a variety of reasons. But that doesn't affect the structure of our society," Ms. Gilligan tells the Times. If the sexes are as different as Ms. Gilligan claims, it's hard to see how she can argue that the entrance of women into medical schools into large numbers "doesn't affect the structure of society." Or that if it doesn't, how the entrance of women into law schools in large numbers would affect the structure of society. No women who are physicians or medical school deans are quoted in the article, so they don't have a chance to defend themselves against the lawyer supremacy claim asserted by Ms. Gilligan and duly trumpeted by the Times.

Fashion Police: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the annual Gridiron Club dinner and says that President Bush appeared "In tuxedo and white tie." It's possible that Mr. Bush was in a tuxedo and white tie, but, more likely, he was in a white tie and tails. If Mr. Bush were in a tuxedo and white tie, it would be a fashion foul for the Times to describe it as "the requisite ultra-formal garb, a far cry from the ranch wear he prefers." A tuxedo is by definition tailless, and is not "ultra-formal," but, as Webster's Second put it, "considered less formal than a swallowtail coat." The Times also does Senator Lieberman a favor by omitting the more tasteless jokes he told (for those, see the Washington Post's more colorful account of the dinner).

The New York Times editorial page and news columns have been campaigning for years for the proposition that American politicians are corrupted by the influence of campaign contributions from corporations. Today, the Times takes this claim to a new extreme, arguing in a front-page news article that a Harvard professor and his research are somehow suspect because the professor's research center "receives most of its money from industry." The professor, John Graham, who studies the costs and benefits of government regulations, comes in for the scrutiny because he has been nominated for a job in the Bush administration.

The level of innuendo in this news report is high in comparison to the supporting evidence, which is scarce. The Times reports that "Sixty percent of the center's annual budget comes from private gifts and grants, most of them from industry trade organizations and large companies, including Monsanto, ExxonMobil, 3M, Alcoa, Pfizer, Dow Chemical and DuPont."

The Times article further says that "the center's reports have tended to reflect the view of industry, as in a study last summer, sponsored by AT&T Wireless Communication, that concluded that the hazards of talking on a cell phone while driving were relatively small."

Finally, the Times reports that "In the early 1990's, Dr. Graham solicited money from Philip Morris at a time when he was criticizing the E.P.A.'s conclusion that second-hand smoke was a carcinogen."

Smartertimes.com will take these arguments one at a time. First, the assertion that "Sixty percent of the center's annual budget comes from private gifts and grants." Well, this is how university research is funded. The article doesn't report where the other 40 percent of the funding comes from. There are three likely sources: government grants and contracts, endowment income and tuition income from students. If Dr. Graham receives any funding from government, that money could have just as much of a corrupting influence as the Times suggests that the funding he has received from industry has had. If the funding comes from Harvard's endowment, it could well come from investments in -- gasp! -- industry. And if the money is from student tuition, the students or their parents could well have earned the money by working in government or in industry. Or the students could hope to pay off their student loans by eventually working in government or industry. It's hard to see what perfectly pure method the Times would propose the professor use to fund his research. Perhaps it could be funded solely by contributions from Maryknoll Sisters, with the size of the contributions limited to $10 each and the identities of the individual donors immediately disclosed over the Internet. Or maybe Senators McCain and Feingold could fund the Harvard center, since, as faithful readers of the Times have doubtless long-since divined, those senators are pure as the driven snow.

Next, consider the sources of the apparently corrupting contributions. One of them is ExxonMobil. In addition to funding the work of this Harvard professor, ExxonMobil is also involved in funding the oh-so nefarious work of those well-known corporate sycophants, the news reporters of the New York Times. After all, the company is a regular advertiser in the newspaper. In fact, after reading about the supposedly suspect cell phone-auto-safety study "sponsored by AT&T Wireless Communication," readers of this morning's New York Times can flip one page of the newspaper over and find a nearly full- page advertisement in the Times from, you guessed it, "AT&T Wireless."

The Times doesn't bother to actually scrutinize the professor's study of cell phones and auto safety to find out if the methodology was somehow flawed or the results were wrong. The newspaper reports no evidence that the funding was conditional on the study's outcome, or that the study's outcome was conditional on the source of the funding. Instead the Times simply casts aspersions. It's as if someone at the Columbia Journalism Review decided to write an assessment of the environmental reporting of the New York Times, but, rather than arguing that there were mistakes in any of the news articles, simply pointed out derisively that the Times gets advertising from big polluters.

In reality, the same way that political contributors tend to give money to politicians whose views they sympathize with, contributors to universities tend to give to institutions whose research agendas they support. The New York Times Company and its foundation support the Columbia Journalism School. Jews support Jewish studies. Blacks endow professorships of African-American studies. Businessmen donate to business schools. Gun control supporters donate to the campaign of Senator Schumer. This is the natural course of things, and it's hard to see a reasonable alternative, other than forcing donors to give their own money to causes that they do not support. This is actually the solution the Times proposes to the campaign finance issue -- taxing the public to pay for advertising time of all government-approved candidates. Look next for the Times editorial page to suggest that Philip Morris be forced to support financially research and advertising that is contrary to its own corporate interests. Oh, wait -- that already happened, in the tobacco settlement. The next thing to look for, then, is a Times-backed law that forbids companies from funding university research and that imposes limits on the donations by individuals to universities. After all, the Times supports such limits on donations to politicians. Don't our nation's colleges and universities deserve the same protections from the harmful, corrupting influence of corporate cash that our government does?

Personality-Driven: A front-page article in today's New York Times about the tension between President Bush and Senator McCain is a typical example of the newspaper's emphasis on personality and politics at the expense of policy and substance. The Times reports at length on the clashes between the two politicians over an overhaul of campaign finance law and over a bill "to regulate health maintenance organizations." But the newspaper can't be bothered to mention President Bush's substantive concerns that the McCain approach to campaign finance would restrict free speech in violation of the First Amendment and that the McCain approach to heath care policy would be a license for tort lawyers to drive up your health insurance premiums. Instead of mentioning or explaining the policy differences that drive this dispute, the Times serves up gossip-column-grade applesauce about "campaign staffs acting like sore losers" and a bunch of anonymous analysis about the "Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry."

The same news article refers to Mr. Bush "aggressively promoting his campaign agenda of large tax cuts." The Bush tax cut is not "large" compared to the size of the projected surplus, nor compared to the size of the tax cut proposed by some House Republicans. It is large in the opinion of many Democrats and in the opinion of the Times editorial writers. But Smartertimes.com thought that the Times was, at least ostensibly, devoted to keeping out of its news coverage the opinion of the news department as to whether the Bush tax cut is "large" or "small" or "just right."

The national section of today's New York Times carries a news article about the fact that the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, now says he was wrong to have supported a pardon for Marc Rich, the fugitive commodities trader.

Mr. Foxman spoke to reporters about this yesterday, the Times reports. But Mr. Foxman also issued a press release about it on Monday, March 19. That press release includes the same quote that today's Times article attributes to Mr. Foxman: "I began to question whether a person's good deeds should overshadow other aspects of his behavior." National Review Online reported Mr. Foxman's flip-flop on March 20; readers of the New York Times had to wait four more days until the Times waddled in with the news.

An article in the national section of today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Bush's Budget Would Cut 3 Programs to Aid Children." The headline is inelegantly worded: What the Times is really trying to say is that Bush's budget would cut three programs that aid children, and that, in so doing, it would hurt children. But read to the end of the article, and it turns out that one of the programs isn't a program to help children, but to subsidize pediatricians and hospitals. And pediatricians and hospital executives already make a lot of money without additional subsidies from the taxes paid, in part, by people in less well-paid professions. The Times reports that "In December, Congress also provided $235 million for a new program to train pediatricians and other doctors at children's hospitals across the country. Bush administration officials said the White House Office of Management and Budget had made a preliminary decision to seek large cuts in this program." The Times quotes one Republican congresswoman expressing concern about the cuts, asserting, "We really need the money for training of physicians who deal directly with children." In 1995, American pediatricians earned $140,000 a year on average, according to American Medical Association data quoted by the Puget Sound Business Journal. A "program to aid children" might be one that stopped taking money from the parents of children and giving it to already-wealthy pediatricians and soon-to-be wealthy pediatricians-in-training.

Sure to Rankle: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on energy legislation introduced by Democrats. "The legislation, in an approach sure to rankle Republicans, calls for limits by 2008 on the amount of fuel that light trucks and sport utility vehicles, which consume more gas than cars, can use," the Times reports. By writing that the approach is "sure to rankle Republicans," the Times saves itself the effort and the unpleasant task of actually going out and interviewing Republicans to see if they are rankled.

Late Again: How slow is the New York Times on local news? An article in today's metro section reports on a surge in marriages in New York as a result of a provision in immigration law. The article reports that "other cities with large immigrant populations, like Chicago and Los Angeles," have also experienced marriage booms. Well, the Los Angeles Times reported this on March 15, 2001, under the headline "Thousands of Immigrants Race to Say 'I Do' So They Can Say 'We Stay.'" The Los Angeles Times was able to detect the marriage boom in Los Angeles and report it fully a week faster than the New York Times was able to detect the marriage boom in New York and report it.

Late Again: How slow is the New York Times on local news? An article in today's metro section runs under the headline "When Politics Is in the Blood" and reports on the children of New York city council members. The children are in many cases running for the seats that their parents are being forced to vacate because of term limits. The Daily News had this news on February 26, 2001, under the headline "It's Family Affair in Election; Incumbents' relatives making a grab for City Council seats." Today's New York Times article makes no mention of the earlier report in the News.