A Times news article headlined "An Effort To Thwart Sale of Papers To the Kochs" reports that "the two Democratic leaders of the [California] state legislature — Darrell Steinberg, the president pro tem of the Senate, and John A. Perez, the speaker of the Assembly" announced on Wednesday that they would oppose a sale of the Los Angeles Times to the libertarian businessmen Charles and David Koch.

If these were Republican politicians trying to prevent the sale of a newspaper to left-wing owners, you can be sure the Times article would be full of quotes from journalism "experts" about how outrageous it is for politicians to get to decide or approve who owns the newspaper that covers them and that serves as a watchdog on them. In fact, it is outrageous. The politicians control the newspapers in dictatorships. In America we have a free press, which means that the politicians don't get to pick the owners. But the New York Times seems so eager to prevent the sale of the Los Angeles Times or the Chicago Tribune to deep-pocketed owners whose politics differ from the New York Times' left-wing views that the New York Times seems willing to throw this principle overboard, or at least to put it aside.

A Times news article headlined "emphasis on Deficit Reduction Is Seen By Economists as Impeding Recovery" begins:

The nation's unemployment rate would probably be nearly a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth almost two points higher this year if Washington had not cut spending and raised taxes as it has since 2011, according to private-sector and government economists.

This is absurd. These economists have no way of knowing what would happen. The last time around, they famously predicted a lower unemployment rate than what actually happened after the stimulus. And the Times lumps together the spending cuts and the tax increases as if they have the same effect.

The article goes on to paraphrase one "senior principal economist" who "noted that the economy was much stronger than Europe's largely because the United States initially opted for stimulus measures and allowed deficits to increase when the recession and financial crisis hit five years ago. European governments pursued austerity policies to cut their debts, further stalling economic activity and in turn inflating deficits."

That, too, is absurd. Different European countries are in different shape. The unemployment rates in Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands are all lower than the rate is now in the United States. And, contrary to the claim that the European governments went for austerity rather than stimulus, the OECD reports that over 2008 to 2010 Germany conducted a stimulus equal to three percent of 2008 GDP; Spain, three and a half percent. These are smaller packages than America's 5.6 percent, but their initial response was stimulus, not "austerity."

A full-page advertisement from Coca-Cola on page A13 of today's New York Times declares "Coca-Cola commits to: ... Market responsibly, including no advertising to children under 12 anywhere in the world."

On the face of it, this seems ridiculous. How is Coca-Cola going to prevent some child from seeing a Coca-Cola sign, or billboard, or vending machine, television commercial, or print newspaper ad?

If you go to the Coke web site there's a little more information. But this is the sort of claim that if it were being made by a politician or a mortgage lender would be the subject of a Times investigative reporting onslaught. When it's made in an advertisement in the Times' own pages by Coca-Cola, it gets a pass.

From a New York Times news article about teacher pay: "average teacher pay — $56,643, according to the Department of Education — is lower than the average pay in many other professions that require college and graduate degrees."

The Times does not point out that those "many other professions" don't also offer summers and school vacation weeks off, defined-benefit pensions, lifetime job security, and generous health insurance benefits. Not to take anything away from teachers — I love teachers. Just to make sure that the compensation comparison is an accurate one.

On Thursday, the Times foreign desk updated us on the development of "class consciousness" in Cuba. On Friday, the Times nation desk portrayed complaints about airplane noise in Silicon Valley as exposing a "class divide." Today, the Times metro desk gets into the action, managing to fit a routine article about an environmental cleanup of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn into — sure enough — what seems to be emerging as the newspaper's standard Marxist analytical framework of class struggle.

Here's the relevant passage:

One part of the E.P.A.'s plan for the 1.8-mile canal would require the city to build an eight-million-gallon sewage storage tank so that the area's combined waste and rainwater sewers would not overflow during heavy storms and contaminate the canal. But the site the agency has chosen for the tank would place it under a park that has a popular 3-foot-9-inch-deep swimming pool, fondly known as the Double D pool because it is between Douglass and DeGraw Streets.

...Children from Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens mingle with those from three nearby housing projects.

"There's nothing like getting into a bathing suit for neutralizing class lines," said Holly White, a mother of two young children who learned to swim at the Double D and caper there much of the summer....

Construction of the sewage storage tank would close the pool, and possibly an adjoining playground, basketball court and skate park, for years; officials have not said whether they would come up with a temporary alternative. ... The E.P.A. says that in any case, the pool will one day have to be dug up since it was built above the remnants of a plant that manufactured natural gas from coal and left behind a residue of toxic coal tars.

As if without the calming effect of the swimming pool, the residents of Brooklyn would be engaging in violent class warfare, as they usually do when they aren't wearing bathing suits.

You wouldn't know it from reading the Times article, but this pool is an outdoor pool that is open only from June 28 to Labor Day. Somehow, miraculously, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens manage to stave off the class clashes with public housing residents during the other ten months of the year without the assistance of the pool.

As I said in some of the previous posts, it's nearly comical, but aside from the humor, it can be annoying, because even if all a reader wants is an update on the canal cleanup, he's nevertheless subjected to a lecture from the Times (or a source the paper chooses to include) about "neutralizing class lines."

The Web site JimRomenesko.com has a report from Alan Peppard of the Dallas Morning News about a talk at Southern Methodist University by the executive editor of the New York Times, Jill Abramson:

While here, she visited the Sixth Floor Museum (in the old Texas School Book Depository) and she watched Cronkite's first bulletin. She commented on how, unlike today, the first report was quite accurate. 'In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired…'

Yet a closer look shows the accuracy of that initial CBS report (a YouTube video of it is here) — in particular, how many shots were fired — is still open to question, and is certainly not as clear-cut or closed a factual matter as the Cronkite report, and Ms. Abramson's apparent endorsement of it, suggest. Here is how the author William Manchester put it in his authoritative 1967 book The Death of a President (p. 155):

The plaza is an acoustical freak, and this writer, like the Warren Commission, could not determine how many shots were fired by the assassin. Two found their mark. A majority of witnesses say they heard three detonations, and three spent shells were found in the sniper's perch. Yet several witnesses closest to the scene—e.g., Mrs. Kennedy, Clint Hill, Zapruder—heard only two reports. And it would have been typical of Oswald's laxity to have come to the warehouse with an expended cartridge in the breech, which would have required removal before he could commence firing.

Manchester goes on to write that, "However, three shots may well have been fired."

Here is the Warren Commission's discussion of the issue, from chapter three of the report of that official government commission set up to investigate the assassination:

The consensus among the witnesses at the scene was that three shots were fired. However, some heard only two shots, while others testified that they heard four and perhaps as many as five or six shots. The difficulty of accurate perception of the sound of gunshots required careful scrutiny of all of this testimony regarding the number of shots. The firing of a bullet causes a number of noises: the muzzle blast, caused by the smashing of the hot gases which propel the bullet into the relatively stable air at the gun's muzzle; the noise of the bullet, caused by the shock wave built up ahead of the bullet's nose as it travels through the air; and the noise caused by the impact of the bullet on its target. Each noise can be quite sharp and may be perceived as a separate shot. The tall buildings in the area might have further distorted the sound.

The physical and other evidence examined by the Commission compels the conclusion that at least two shots were fired. As discussed previously, the nearly whole bullet discovered at Parkland Hospital and the two larger fragments found in the Presidential automobile, which were identified as coming from the assassination rifle, came from at least two separate bullets and possibly from three. The most convincing evidence relating to the number of shots was provided by the presence on the sixth floor of three spent cartridges which were demonstrated to have been fired by the same rifle that fired the bullets which caused the wounds. It is possible that the assassin carried an empty shell in the rifle and fired only two shots, with the witnesses hearing multiple noises made by the same shot. Soon after the three empty cartridges were found, officials at the scene decided that three shots were fired, and that conclusion was widely circulated by the press. The eyewitness testimony may be subconsciously colored by the extensive publicity given the conclusion that three shots were fired. Nevertheless, the preponderance of the evidence, in particular the three spent cartridges, led the Commission to conclude that there were three shots fired.

In other words, the only sure thing is that at least two shots were fired. Different witnesses heard different things. And the illusion of authority or accuracy conveyed by Cronkite's report may have made it harder for investigators to gather unbiased testimony after the fact. The bottom line is that you don't have to be Oliver Stone or some JFK assassination conspiracy theorist — which I am not — to realize that, rather than being an example of accurate early reporting as Ms. Abramson hailed it, Cronkite's "three shots" bulletin is a reminder of the importance of carefully attributing sources of this sort of information — "according to police," "according to some eyewitnesses" — of describing the way that the information was developed — "the witnesses said they heard three shots," "the police said they recovered three spent cartridges" — and reminding readers or listeners of the limits of what is known.

Yesterday, the Times provided a May Day update from Havana on the development of "class consciousness" in Cuba. Today it is Silicon Valley that gets squeezed into the Times' laughably predictable framework of analysis: "Corporate Jet Center Exposes Silicon Valley's Class Divide," the headline over the article says.

In fact, people of all classes who live near airports don't like the noise. This is true, in my experience and observation, regardless of economic conditions, geography, or income inequality, and regardless of whether the airplanes involved are private Gulfstreams or not-so-private People Express planes. Rather than demonstrating a class divide, the nearly universal opposition to airplane noise from neighbors of airports show that many issues transcend the class boundaries that are so ardently reinforced by Times reporters and editors.

The reporting in the article illuminates the lack of a class divide. It quotes a "part-time school custodian" saying she is "going to try to talk to that guy at Facebook" about trying to prevent the conversion of the Palo Alto mobile home park where she lives to luxury residences. If the class divide were as sharp as the Times insists it is, such communication would be unthinkable.

What the article is really about is an inflation in the price of houses in Silicon Valley. The Times reports:

Sales figures for single-family homes in Santa Clara and San Mateo, the two main counties in Silicon Valley, show median prices have risen about 30 percent in the past year while the inventory of available homes has fallen by roughly half, according to an analysis of local multiple listing service data by the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors. The median prices for March — $735,000 in Santa Clara and $925,000 in San Mateo — only hint at the current market's frenzy.

Each property now typically attracts between 10 and 30 offers, eventually selling from 5 percent to 25 percent above the asking price, said Moise Nahouraii, the owner of Referral Realty in Cupertino. Jeff Barnett, a former president of the association and a regional vice president at Alain Pinel Realtors, said 30 percent to 40 percent of sales were paid in cash.

One can interpret these developments in terms of a "class divide," as the Times does. Or one can interpret them in terms of the effects of the Federal Reserve's zero interest rate policy — "zirp," or of California's strict environmental regulations that protect ridgelines, redwoods, and live oaks and that make it very difficult to win approval for the construction of new housing. The Times article doesn't mention the effects of regulatory restrictions on the supply of new housing. Nor does this particular article mention interest rates.

Over on the op-ed page, however, Nobel laureate economics columnist Paul Krugman, under the headline "Not Enough Inflation," writes that inflation, "at barely above 1 percent by the Fed's favored measure," is "dangerously low," and that such low inflation "encourages sitting on cash." Someone should tell Professor Krugman about housing prices in Silicon Valley.

A Times dispatch from London on a British sex-crimes investigation reports: "Stung by criticism that they failed to follow through on numerous complaints against Mr. Savile, the police are now going out of their way to appear receptive to even the most minor complaint, even ones that are decades old."

The article goes on to describe instances of alleged rape, statutory rape, assault, and sexual assault. The Times doesn't say which one of these are "minor," but it seems an oddly breezy and dismissive characterization. When it's Times reporters investigating these sorts of abuses at, say, Horace Mann, the fact that they are "decades old" doesn't mean that they are "minor" or that they should be ignored.

A Times dispatch from the May Day parade in Havana, Cuba carries this passage:

"We're in this very interesting phase in which the public and private sector collaborate and compete at the same time," said Richard E. Feinberg, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who is doing a study of Cuba's private sector.

New economic freedoms and the taxes paid by private-sector workers are also beginning to alter the relationship between individuals and the state, analysts say.

"The willingness of people to express an alternative point of view has definitely expanded," Dr. Feinberg said. "But it'll take a while before they begin to develop a class consciousness and a political articulation of their interests."

You can't make this stuff up. Is there anyplace in 2013 other than the news columns of the New York Times and maybe Professor Feinberg's classroom (or other university settings) where the term "class consciousness" is used this earnestly and without irony? Are Times readers supposed to be aided in their understanding of the course of events in Cuba by this sort of crude Marxist determinism? Can we expect an update from Havana with a headline when the private sector workers finally do "begin to develop a class consciousness"? If there were only any evidence of consciousness on the part of whatever editor on the foreign desk made the mistake of moving this one along without cutting that line.

From a New York Times obituary of Deanna Durbin: "Durbin devoted most of her time to keeping her home, cooking and raising her children."

The children are much easier to raise once they are cooked.

(Following the advice of the late, great, William Safire, we'll refrain from criticizing the use of "raising" as opposed to "rearing.")

Thanks to reader-participant-community member-watchdog-content co-creator L. for sending the tip.

"Poll Shows Isolationist Streak in Americans" is the headline over a New York Times article reporting on the results of the latest New York Times CBS News Poll.

The headline is absurd, because the poll doesn't ask respondents if they are isolationist or internationalist/interventionist. It found 70% support for American drone strikes against suspected terrorists in foreign countries, a tactic that a strict isolationist would probably oppose. The "isolationist" headline seems to stem from the response to a question about Syria.

That question was phrased as follows: "Do you think the United States has a responsibility to do something about the fighting in Syria between government forces and anti-government groups, or doesn't the United States have this responsibility?" Twenty-four percent said America has responsibility, while 62 percent that it does not.

I'd bet that if you phrased the question another way, you could get a different result. You could ask, for example, "President Obama says Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad has killed tens of thousands of people, including civilians, to cling to power against an opposition that says it wants freedom and democracy. The governments of Britain, France, Israel, and America say the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, and the U.S. government says Syria has sponsored international terrorism. Should America do what it can to help the opposition or should it stand idly by while tens of thousands more innocent civilians are slaughtered by the terrorist-sponsoring dictator?"

Smartertimes is not arguing for American military intervention in Syria, and we have no confidence that what comes after Assad will be better. We're just arguing that the way the Times/CBS poll phrased the question tells you more about the Times than about whether the American people are or are not isolationist. The question ignores the fact that the opposition has actually been recognized as a legitimate government in exile by some countries, so that rather than a conflict between "government forces and anti-government groups," the conflict might be more accurately described between two groups that each claim to be the government of Syria, one a terror-sponsoring dictator, the other a mixture of Islamic fundamentalists and advocates of human rights and democracy.

A Times editorial about American policy toward Syria following the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against the opposition says, "Mr. Obama should only act if he has compelling documentation that the sarin gas was used in an attack by Syrian forces and was not the result of an accident or fertilizer."

Fertilizer?

The Times offers no further explanation, so readers are left to puzzle out for themselves the source of the possible confusion, or imagine potential scenarios. Was Bashar al-Assad so worried that the rebels might be hungry that he lobbed shells containing fertilizer at them so that their crops would flourish? Were the chemical weapons — sorry, "fertilizer" — distributed to the rebels by the Assad regime along with copies of the latest Burpee seed catalog, bags of potting soil, and leather gardening gloves?

The front of the business section of today's New York Times carries an article headlined "Wealth Gap Among Races Widened Since Recession." It reports on an Urban Institute study about racial disparities in wealth accumulation. The headline news is that "the average white family had about $632,000 in wealth, versus $98,000 for black families and $110,000 for Hispanic families."

Here are two ways that both the Urban Institute study and the Times article are flawed:

• There's no accounting for either age or education levels. It may be that, for example, Hispanic families have less wealth because they are younger, and wealth grows with age, or that whites have more college or post-college degrees, which may net out positively in the long run in terms of wealth.
• They both rely on a Federal Reserve survey that includes 6,500 voluntary participants. As the Fed explains, "to maintain the scientific validity of the study, interviewers are not allowed to substitute respondents for families that do not participate. Thus, if a family declines to participate, it means that families like theirs may not be represented clearly in national discussions." If you're an illegal immigrant, or if you have wealth that derives from illicit activities, you might be less willing to participate in this survey. The sample is small enough that if the survey had happened to include one more black television personality, investment banker, or athletic star, the average wealth statistics might have turned out significantly differently.

Here are three ways that the Times article is flawed:

• It totally ignores the conservative policy recommendation — welfare reform — that is part of the Urban Institute study. The study says "many safety net programs even discourage saving: families can become ineligible if they have a few thousand dollars in savings." The Times article makes no mention of this angle, that the perverse incentives of welfare programs contribute to the wealth gap.
• It emphasizes averages rather than medians. The Urban Institute study includes a footnote that reports the median wealth of white families was $124,000, of black families, $16,000, and of Hispanic families, $15,000. The Times article acknowledges, " Median wealth figures — where half of households have more wealth and half less — produces lower numbers, but the trends are the same, the Urban Institute researchers said." But the Times, unlike the Urban Institute, does not include the actual median figures.
• The Times article reports that "Discriminatory lending practices were also a factor." But the Urban Institute study says nothing at all about discriminatory lending practices. In fact, rather than faulting banks for lending to minority borrowers, as the Times article does, the Urban Institute is positive about borrowing for a home: "Most families save by paying off mortgages through homeownership...Recession led many low-income individuals to fear homeownership even when it became much cheaper on net than renting."

A front-page Times dispatch from Damascus reports, "the United States has signaled growing discomfort with the rising influence of radical Islamists on the battlefield, and it remains unwilling to arm the rebels or to consider stepping in more forcefully without conclusive evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, as some Israeli officials assert."

Funny, a Times editorial today uses different language to describe the chemical weapons allegation. The editorial refers to "the charges by Israel, Britain and France." Similarly, a Times news article published last week reported, "Britain and France have written separately to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations that there is credible information suggesting Syria's government has used chemical weapons in the civil war on multiple occasions since last December, diplomats said Thursday."

By describing the chemical weapons allegation as being made by "some Israeli officials" rather than by "Israel, Britain, and France," today's front-page news article makes the allegation sound more trivial, and less substantial, than it is.

An anti-Israel cookbook published by an anti-Israel publisher gets a recommendation from the New York Times this morning, a disturbing sign of the way the newspaper's view of the Arab-Israeli conflict infects even sections like the food section, which some readers might hope would be apolitical.

The "Florence Fabricant Recommends" column recommends discovering a book called The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey. The Times article reports that the book is a guide to "the zesty home cooking of Gaza, the strip of land on the Mediterranean coast sandwiched between Egypt and Israel." It says the book "also discusses issues in Gaza like shortages of electricity and water."

The Times doesn't mention that the discussion of these issues comes with a marked anti-Israel skew; the shortage of electricity, for example, is attributed to "Israel's 2006 punitive bombing of Gaza's sole power plant" along with "a subsequent Israeli ban on the import of factory components."