At the conclusion of today's installment of the Times' thousand-part series on the evils of Israel's settlement policies in the West Bank comes this passage:

The latest Israeli settlement plans were "a stab in the back for everyone who has worked to have negotiations," said a Palestinian official involved in the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It legitimizes the fears everybody had that the negotiations are just a smoke screen."

This looks to me like a violation of the Times policy on the use of confidential sources, which states:

We do not grant anonymity to people who use it as cover for a personal or partisan attack. If pejorative opinions are worth reporting and cannot be specifically attributed, they may be paraphrased or described after thorough discussion between writer and editor. The vivid language of direct quotation confers an unfair advantage on a speaker or writer who hides behind the newspaper, and turns of phrase are valueless to a reader who cannot assess the source.

If the Israeli settlement moves are such a "stab in the back," can't the Times find a Palestinian Arab official who will say so on-the-record, without being granted anonymity? The newspaper's failure to do so suggests that perhaps the real news is not the story the Times seems to want to tell — Israeli settlement move disrupts talks — but the story the Times doesn't seem to want to tell — talks go on notwithstanding Israeli settlement moves that the Palestinians are less upset about than the Times editors are.

The Times article gives no explanation to readers of why the Palestinian official should be granted anonymity. The Israeli government spokesman in the article, Mark Regev, is on the record, as is the American secretary of State, John Kerry.

The New York Times has an article headlined, "The Rich Drive Differently, a Study Suggests," about a piece of social science research published in 2010. Why this research is newsworthy all of a sudden now, three years after it was published, the Times doesn't explain or say. The Times characterizes the study as "linking bad driving habits with wealth," similar to the headline about "the rich," but the research doesn't have any information about the wealth of the drivers, just about how fancy or new the car they were driving was. Someone who owns a used Toyota outright may be wealthier in terms of assets in a brokerage account than someone who borrowed to buy a new Mercedes or someone who is leasing a new Mercedes. The research fits the Times worldview that the non-Sulzberger rich are somehow evil, so it gets reported without the skepticism or hostility that the Times applies in its approach to other news stories.

A Times news article about a Web site that covers gossip about black celebrities includes the following passage:

"There is so much drama with black people that doesn't get covered," said Allison Samuels, who is African-American and has reported on the entertainment industry for Newsweek for two decades.

"People covers four black people: Beyoncé, Rihanna and Jay Z and Kanye," she said, referring to those popular singers. "I want to know what other actresses are wearing and who they are dating. Fred was smart to realize the hole and get in there and capitalize."

It is not accurate that People magazine "covers four black people." A quick look at the People Web site discloses coverage of Anthony Mackie, Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry, Will Smith, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, Queen Latifah, and Michelle Obama, to name just a few.

The Times doesn't give People the opportunity to respond to the inaccurate characterization, which is no less egregious for the fact that it comes in a quotation rather than in a sentence that is outside quotation marks.

A Times article about how black voters are reacting to the political candidacies of New York Democrats Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer begins, "Seated on a dais, before a crowd of men and women still picking at their breakfast of fried chicken, sausage, eggs and grits, Eliot Spitzer smiled."

It looks like political correctness at the Times has not yet penetrated to the point where reporters and editors would pause before beginning a news article about the voting behavior of African Americans with an anecdote that reinforces a stereotype about fried chicken. If black voters in New York actually are eating fried chicken for breakfast, I'm not saying the Times should ignore it. But it's the sort of thing that may well make a lot of readers wince, especially because it's not a detail that's necessarily relevant to the substance of the article, at least not so relevant that it merits being placed in the first sentence.

A brief article in the Times reports that David N. Kelley, a lawyer for New York Times reporter James Risen, has written to attorney general Eric Holder asking Mr. Holder to withdraw a subpoena seeking information about Mr. Risen's confidential source. The article does not report who is paying Mr. Kelley's fee. Is it the Times? Is it the Free Press, the imprint of Simon & Schuster that published the 2006 book that is an issue in the case? Is it some insurance company that covers either the Times or the Free Press or Mr. Risen personally? Is Mr. Risen paying out of his own pocket? Or is Mr. Kelley volunteering his services?

Sometimes the problem with the Times isn't so much the ideology as the intelligibility, or lack of it. Consider this sentence from a front-page Times article about the news that the mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, who is running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate in New Jersey, co-founded a tech company and earned $1.3 million for paid speeches while serving as mayor of Newark: "Waywire has also provided jobs for associates of Mr. Booker: the son of a top campaign supporter and his social media consultant, who is now on his Senate campaign staff."

I'm usually pretty good at reading comprehension, but I couldn't figure out what that meant. The rest of the article is not any help.

Here are some possibilities for what the three Times reporters who wrote the article, David Halbfinger, Raymond Hernandez, and Claire Cain Miller, might have been trying to convey. I've added names to make the scenarios more concrete:

1. Mr. Booker's top campaign supporter, David, and Mr. Booker's social media consultant, Claire, together have a son, Raymond. Raymond is now on Mr. Booker' Senate campaign staff and is also employed by Waywire.

2. Mr. Booker's top campaign supporter, David, has a son, Raymond. Raymond, a social media consultant, is on Mr. Booker's campaign staff and is also employed by Waywire.

3. Mr. Booker's top campaign supporter, David, has a son, Raymond, who is employed by Waywire. Mr. Booker's social media consultant, Claire, is on Mr. Booker's campaign staff and is also employed by Waywire.

There may be other possibilities, too. Feel free to add your own in the comments. In the olden days there were editors at the Times who were good at fixing sentences to make them intelligible. Maybe too many of them have retired or taken buyouts, or maybe, since it is August, they are off on vacation.

A front-page Time article about Palestinian Arab children who throw rocks at Israelis explains: "They throw because there is little else to do in Beit Ommar — no pool or cinema, no music lessons after school, no part-time jobs other than peddling produce along the road."

I find this explanation unsatisfying for a variety of reasons. First, before swimming pools or motion pictures were invented, there were many children who managed to find ways to amuse themselves without hurling rocks at other people. Second, the satellite television that is ubiquitous in these sorts of places (a dish is visible on a rooftop in one of the slides that accompanies the Times article) offers more movies than your typical suburban multiplex. Third, there are plenty of children in other poor countries and neighborhoods without music lessons, swimming pools, or movie theaters who manage to find ways to entertain themselves without throwing rocks at other people. Fourth, a quick Internet search finds sites for a summer camp in Beit Ommar that "offered an array of educational, recreational, and cultural activities, including sports, English lessons, and dance" and for a local youth organization whose home page features a photograph of youth frolicking in a swimming pool.

As a separate issue, the map with the article shows Beit Ommar in the context of a series of "Israeli settlements." That's a framing issue. Had the map been larger, it would have included the Israeli capital, Jerusalem, which is between seven and 12 miles away.

A David Brooks column in the Times calls for a return to the Reagan era. "in the 1980s, when conservatism was at its most politically and intellectually vibrant, the dominant voices in the movement celebrated Lincoln, the Progressive Era and even the New Deal...In recent years, people like Kristol, Wilson and Reagan have been celebrated even though many of their ideas could no longer get a hearing in many conservative precincts. The Republican Party is drifting back to a place where it appears hostile to the basic pillars of the welfare state: to food stamps, for example."

This idea that Ronald Reagan was some kind of champion of food stamps, and that the Republicans of today are betraying the Reagan legacy by opposing the program's runaway expansion, is unfounded in historical fact.

Here is a New York Times headline from November 1981: "Reagan Weighs Plan to Cut Food Stamps Fund Even More."

Here is a passage from Reagan's January 1982 State of the Union address to Congress: "Virtually every American who shops in a local supermarket is aware of the daily abuses that take place in the food stamp program, which has grown by 16,000 percent in the last 15 years."

A dispatch from Washington about the Senate's vote to confirm Samantha Power as ambassador to the United Nations reports, "Only 10 senators voted against Ms. Power. Eighty-seven supported her, including 33 Republicans." The word "only" there could have been omitted, allowing readers to decide for themselves whether ten senators are a lot or a little. As is typical, the Times doesn't name the ten senators or even provide a hyperlink to the roll call vote for its online readers. That is a service, however, that Smartertimes provides. The link is here, and the ten opponents included some of the party's rising stars and 2016 presidential contenders, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio.

A column by Paul Krugman criticizes a New York Sun editorial. It's nice to see the New York Sun setting the agenda of the Nobel laureate New York Times columnist, but the Times column has some significant problems. For one thing, it accuses the Sun of "sexism" and "raw mysogyny" when it was the Times itself that, before the Sun did, raised in a front-page news article the issue of Janet Yellin's gender. But the more substantive issue seems to be what Professor Krugman writes when he says the Sun editorial "took it for granted that the Fed has been following disastrously inflationary monetary policies for years, even though actual inflation is at a 50-year low....The people shouting that the Fed is 'debasing the dollar' have been warning of runaway inflation any day now for almost five years, and they have been wrong every step of the way."

The Bloomberg News article to which Professor Krugman links for his claim about inflation at a 50-year-low notes that the measure being used "excludes food and fuel." Professor Krugman may survive on the sustenance of his own brilliant intellect, and he may not have to heat his home during those harsh Princeton winters because he has the ability to resort to his sun-drenched Caribbean hideaway. But for the rest of us mortals for whom food and fuel are expenses that can't be assumed away, the inflation picture isn't quite so rosy as Professor Krugman claims. The government's own statistics for inflation (which may understate it) that do include food and fuel are here. They measured it as 3.2% in 2011 and 2.1% in 2012. The list of years that were lower than 2.1% include 2002, 1998, 1986, 1959 to 1965, and 1952 to 1956.

At Reason, Matt Welch has an excellent post highlighting some of the bias in a front-page New York Times article reporting that the city of Richmond, Calif., is going ahead with a plan to attempt to use its eminent domain power to modify home loans that are owned by private investors. But there's even more to it than Mr. Welch reports. The Times article concludes with an anecdote about an individual homeowner:

Many of the communities considering eminent domain were targeted by lenders who steered minority families eligible for conventional mortgages into loans with higher interest rates and ballooning payments. Robert and Patricia Castillo bought a three-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Richmond because their son, who is severely autistic, would anger landlords with his destructive impulses. They paid $420,000 for a home that is now worth $125,000, Mr. Castillo, a mechanic, said.

They have watched as their daughter's playmates on the block have, one by one, lost their homes. But they are reluctant to walk away from the house in part for the sake of their son.

"We're in a bad situation," Mr. Castillo, 44, said. "Not only me and my family, but the whole of Richmond."

From an email forwarded to Smartertimes.com from a banker familiar with details of the mortgage:

The story fails to mention that the Castillos went delinquent back in July 2009 and within 4 months they received a principal and interest rate modification plus the loan was turned into an Interest Only. Their existing 1st lien mortgage, which is sitting in LXS 2006-GP4 and is serviced by GMAC Mortgage, had their interest rate reduced from 5% to 2% with $40,000 of principal deferred. This combined with turning the loan into an IO, drastically reduced their payment from $2064.81 to $638, which is a 69% reduction. This new payment was effective in November 2009 and the Castillos have been current ever since.

Why would the Castillos walk away from a $636 monthly payment?? This payment is equivalent to a $150,000, 30 year loan at 3%.

The story also fails to mention that when the Castillos "purchased" their home in April 2005, they put NO MONEY DOWN. Their original 1st lien was for $336,000 and their original 2nd lien was for $84,000. This totals to $420,000, which is their purchase price. By May 2006, they refinanced into a Greenpoint Option ARM 1st lien of $381,300 combined with a revolving credit line of $55,200.

Their home is a 3BR/1BA 1160SF built in 1948 on a 4469 SF lot. A smaller home in the same subdivision (2BR/1BA 872 SF built in 1940) sold for $148,500 in April 2013. More similar homes within 0.3 miles of the home, have sold from $190,000 to $246,000. 835 31st St located 0.14 miles away, which is a 3BR/1BA 1251 SF built in 1949 on 5000SF lot sold for $246,000 in May 2013. Their home is definitely underwater, but not [worth only] the $125,000 that the story claims.

Investors are owed $422,805.43 on this loan.

That is a remarkably different tale than the one told by the Times. But in the second story, the market has worked; in the Times version of the story, the Castillos are victims awaiting a rescue by the government from the evil bankers.

The Times article also omits the ties to Warren Buffett, George Soros, and President Obama of the firm, Mortgage Resolution Partners, that is pushing the eminent domain grab.

This whole mortgage-eminent domain power grab is a really big story because it involves the use of government power to trample property rights in the housing market. If you think a mortgage is hard to get now — and it is — wait until word gets out that the government can come around and change the terms of the note whenever it is politically convenient and works to the advantage of some other firm with more political juice than the firm that holds the note.

A Times news article about a 400-to-20 vote in the House of Representatives for tighter economic sanctions on Iran includes no hyperlink to the actual roll call vote. The vote is useful information and the Times would do its online readers a service by routinely including it in these sorts of articles. In the olden days the newspaper used to print the actual roll calls in agate type, which was one of the more useful things it did. Print space that used to be devoted to those sort of watchdog-in-a-democracy type functions is now devoted instead to topics such as coverage of men's perfume. It costs no ink or paper to link to the roll call in the online version of a news article, yet the Times is typically reluctant to do so. Smartertimes is happy to provide that service to readers; the link is here, and the minority of 20 includes some congressmen, such as Virginia Democrat Jim Moran, who make a habit of crossing the pro-Israel lobby.

An article in the Times metro section reports on a patient who left Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. From the article:

a person familiar with the situation said that SUNY Downstate officials wanted to remove him last week as part of the push to discharge or transfer the hospital's remaining patients. Administrators bought a one-way Greyhound bus ticket to Florida in Mr. Heredia's name, to depart the morning of July 19, according to the person, who is affiliated with the hospital through a nearby clinic and spoke anonymously because of patient privacy laws.

"Spoke anonymously because of patient privacy laws" suggests that the laws do not permit the person to disclose the information, a point reinforced later in the article by a quote from a SUNY Downstate spokesman, Robert Bellafiore, who reportedly said, "Federal laws are very serious about preserving patient privacy, and so are we."

But the law applies regardless of whether the person disclosing the information is anonymous or not. What the Times is doing by granting anonymity is assisting a person to break a law.

Now, maybe the Times thinks the law is silly, in which case, it can launch an editorial campaign to repeal or amend it. But remember, this is the same newspaper that today has three stories — one on page one, and two on the business page front — about alleged lawbreaking by Steven Cohen's hedge fund. If lawbreaking is bad when hedge fund managers do it, isn't it also bad when hospital employees do it with the cooperation of the New York Times?

One might argue that the hedge fund managers, at least those who pleaded guilty, were breaking the law to make money, while the Times source affiliated with Long Island College Hospital is breaking the law out of some altruistic desire to inform the public or protect a vulnerable patient. Yet without the person's name, it's difficult to assess his or her motivations. It's possible that the hospital source, too, has a monetary incentive, to protect his or her own livelihood by advancing the "keep the hospital open" side of the legal and political battle over closing the hospital. Certainly the Times has a monetary incentive — it's a for-profit company selling subscriptions to news articles prepared using the illegally disclosed information, just like Steven Cohen's hedge fund was taking fees from clients for managing money using illegally disclosed information. And while Arthur Sulzberger Jr. may not be as rich as Steven Cohen, he and his family have still done pretty well over the years, in part on the basis of publishing information divulged by sources violating either laws or contractual duties of secrecy to their governmental or nongovernmental employers.

Separately, the same Times article merits a "lost in Brooklyn" label. It says that Long Island College Hospital is "in Brooklyn Heights," when in fact the hospital is across Atlantic Avenue in the Cobble Hill neighborhood, as earlier Times coverage has reported accurately.

Two articles in the Times today about Steven A. Cohen and his hedge fund offer differing accounts of how much money in the fund is Mr. Cohen's. One article, by Ben Protess and Peter Lattman, begins on the front page, reports, "Of the roughly $15 billion that SAC managed at the beginning of the year, about $8 billion is Mr. Cohen's own money." A second article, by Floyd Norris, reports, "About $9 billion of what is left of SAC's assets belongs to Mr. Cohen."

So which is it, $8 billion or $9 billion? The amount surely fluctuates over time. Neither Times article cites a source for the information. But it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the accuracy in the Times' reporting if on the same day two different Times articles are offering estimates of Mr. Cohen's fortune that differ by $1 billion.

A New York Times news article about President Obama's intent to nominate Caroline Kennedy as ambassador to Japan reports, "Ms. Kennedy, 55, a lawyer and an author who has served as director of numerous nonprofit organizations, has never worked in government."

That is inaccurate. From a Times news article in 2004: "Caroline Kennedy, whose star power helped raise tens of millions of dollars for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's effort to remake the New York City public schools, is stepping down as chief executive of the school system's Office of Strategic Partnerships, officials said yesterday...Ms. Kennedy had planned to accept an annual salary of $90,000 but ultimately decided to take only $1 a year."

It's not true that Ms. Kennedy "has never worked in government." In fact she worked for two years for the New York City government in its school system.

The Times reporter who wrote the article, Mark Landler, finished it in time to make it to the book party for the book "This Town," so maybe he didn't have time to read it over and check it as carefully as he would have if he did not have a party to get to.