The New York Times waddled in recently on two stories that were already extensively reported in other publications. It more or less replicated the reporting and then re-issued the articles to Times readers, without letting Times readers in on the fact that they were consuming five-month-old news.
Our first example is today's front-page New York Times article by Jennifer Steinhauer and Jonathan Weisman about the Heritage Foundation's supposed turn away from rigorous scholarship and toward political activism (funny how the Times wasn't exactly celebrating Heritage's rigorous scholarship during the decades before it was supposedly destroyed).
The Times reports that "In recent months, some of the group's most prominent scholars have left."
The Times quotes Mickey Edwards, a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation and a Republican former congressman: "DeMint has not only politicized Heritage, he's also trivialized it."
The Times reports on a flap over Heritage's position on the farm bill, and also reports, "Perhaps no event has been more indicative of the foundation's new relations with Congress than the decision by House Republicans last summer to kick Heritage Foundation analysts out of the weekly meeting of their Republican Study Committee. Heritage officials had been the only outsiders allowed in the meeting. But as Heritage Action became more aggressive, study committee members demanded to know why the people criticizing them in their districts were listening in on their strategizing in Washington. Mr. DeMint attributed the ouster to questions over ethics rules on providing food to lawmakers."
It's all ground that had been thoroughly plowed by Molly Ball back on September 25, 2013 in an article in the Atlantic. She had quoted Mickey Edwards:
Mickey Edwards, one of three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation when it began in 1973, was one of those disturbed by Heritage's turn, which, he told me, "makes it look like just another hack Tea Party kind of group."
A former eight-term Republican congressman from Oklahoma, Edwards now serves as vice president of the Aspen Institute. "They're destroying the reputation and credibility of the Heritage Foundation," he added. "I think the respect for their [policy] work has been greatly diminished as a result."
She had mentioned the staff exodus: "Numerous top staffers have left in recent years."
She had reported on the "blowup over the farm bill" and wrote that "Nothing better symbolizes Heritage's integration with Republican policymaking than its longtime partnership with the Republican Study Committee...Heritage sponsors the RSC's annual retreat, paying for members and their spouses to spend three days at a lavish hotel proximate to D.C. And House Republicans who belong to the RSC meet every Wednesday over lunch to talk policy, plot legislative strategy, and seek out cosponsors for legislation. Each member of Congress may bring only one staffer to the large conference room in the basement of the Capitol where the meetings are held. Outside groups are barred -- except Heritage. The foundation's lobbyists are a fixture at the meetings, which Heritage also has historically catered with sandwiches from Chick-fil-A. But this cozy relationship hit an abrupt snag last month. ...Heritage was abruptly banned from the RSC's meetings."
The second example is a Times article by Vivian Yee that ran under the headline "Montessori Schools Surge in Popularity Among New Generation of Jewish Parents." It quotes Ami Petter-Lipstein, Amanda Pogany, and Rivkah Schack. The New York Jewish Week's Julie Weiner wrote the same article back in Sepember of 2013, also quoting Ami Petter-Lipstein, Amanda Pogany, and Rivkah Schack. Again, the Times doesn't credit or mention the Jewish Week article.