A front-page Times dispatch from London about Rebekah Brooks, a news executive "facing charges of illegally intercepting voice messages and other crimes in connection with their work for Mr. Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid" reports:
from appearances at least, she is a changed woman. Her clingy, look-at-me clothes have been replaced by functional skirts and blouses; she wears little makeup.
The reference to "clingy, look-at-me clothes" struck me as odd, and something an editor should have edited out. People wear clingy clothing for all kinds of reasons — comfort, weight gain, fashion, problems with static electricity. Ascribing "look-at-me" as a motive for wearing the clothing, in the absence of any evidence, is an example of the kind of over-the-top schadenfreude that has characterized the Times coverage of this case from the get-go. The case, at this point, involves the British government pursuing throwing newspaper editors in jail as punishment for subordinates who allegedly violated the law in their newsgathering techniques. If the American government tried to do this to a Times editor whose reporter who tried, say, to get a source to leak classified documents or information about the NSA, the Times would be on its high horse about the First Amendment. But since it is a Murdoch paper and Murdoch's former executives being pursued, the Times is cheering on the British investigation.
Smartertimes readers can judge for themselves: Here is a page from the Daily Mail with some pictures of Rebekah Brooks, and here are some pages with images of New York Times editor Jill Abramson. The next time the New York Times writes about Ms. Abramson, should it describe her as wearing "clingy, look-at-me-clothes"?