The New York Times publishes a classic today in its national section under the headline "Conviction of a Polygamist Raises Fears Among Others." The article, datelined Salt Lake City, begins, "The conviction of a Utah man on bigamy charges last week is causing anxiety among the state's polygamists, many of whom have grown fearful that prosecutors may now be eager to bring them to trial on the same charges." The story is neutral on its face, but the more a reader thinks about it, the more it seems like an implicit endorsement of polygamy, or at least a statement of sympathy. Polygamy, after all, is illegal. But the approach of writing about a criminal conviction from the point of view of other criminals would be odd if applied to a more conventional crime. Can you imagine, "Conviction of an Arsonist Raises Fears Among Others"? Or an article reporting that the conviction of a mass murderer is "causing anxiety among the state's mass murderers?" Polygamy -- which, after all, has a distinguished biblical history -- isn't mass murder, and there may well be some legitimate religious freedom issues with the government 's law against it. But lines in the Times story like one paraphrasing an advocate who recommends that the legislature "decriminalize bigamy altogether, which would make it easier for members of plural families to seek help when they need it," give a sense of the paper's approach to the issue.
Take His Word For It: A dispatch from Jerusalem in the international section of today's New York Times passes along unchallenged a quote from "the Palestinian information minister, Yasir Abed Rabbo," to the effect that "Our security services were not involved in any shooting incident in the past." In fact, the Times itself has reported information to the contrary, and has published at least one photograph of uniformed Palestinian troops exchanging fire with Israelis. If a spokesman for President Bush tried to get away with a claim that was so obviously contradicted by the facts, the Times would call him on it. Why give Mr. Abed Rabbo a free pass?
Editorial Reality: The lead editorial in this morning's New York Times asserts "Mr. Bush pulled his conservative bait-and-switch with the American electorate after running as a moderate." Mr. Bush said in campaign appearance after campaign appearance that he was a "conservative." He often modified it by saying he was a compassionate conservative or a conservative with compassion, but certainly his positions on taxes, missile defense, education and other issues were clear during the campaign. The notion that there was some sort of "bait-and-switch" is just unsupported. The editorial goes on to report that Republican moderates from the Northeast and Midwest are "beseeching Mr. Bush to pay attention to schools." The idea that Mr. Bush, who ran on his education plan and on his education record in Texas, needs to be beseeched by anyone to pay attention to schools is, also, just unsupported.
Illegal Death: The "inside" box on the front page of today's New York Times says, "As temperatures soared to more than 110 degrees, a dozen people in a group crossing the border illegally died from heat exhaustion." This could be read as saying the people "illegally died." In fact what was illegal was not their death but their border crossing, a matter that could be clarified by moving the word "illegally" earlier in the sentence, to the space between "group" and "crossing."