An article in the sports section of today's New York Times reports that the Boston Red Sox have accepted a bid to be bought by a group that includes the New York Times company.
This is a repulsive deal on a number of levels. For one thing, New York's dominant newspaper now owns an interest in a baseball team that has had a bitter historic rivalry with New York's own baseball teams, the Yankees and the Mets. That may put a sour taste in the mouth of many Yankees and Mets fans, who wonder why anyone would want to own a Red Sox hat, let alone the entire team. No mention of that reaction in today's Times.
For another thing, it's repulsive from the point of view of Boston. The city has lost its own dominant newspaper, the Globe, to the control of New York. Now New York owns the Red Sox? The Times article today makes no mention of the reaction in Boston, which has a history of resisting colonial rule dating back at least to the Tea Party.
Indirectly: A dispatch from Gaza City in the international section of today's New York Times reports on an interview with a leader of the terrorist group Hamas. "Asked if by 'occupation' he was referring to the Gaza Strip and West Bank, which Israel conquered in the 1967 war, or all of Israel, Dr. Rantisi smiled slightly and declined to answer directly," the Times reports. Well, he may have declined to answer "directly," but a comment elsewhere in the Times article, in which the Hamas leader refers to "a struggle that continues now for 53 years," is a pretty direct answer.
Efforts: A dispatch from Cairo in the international section of today's New York Times reports, "Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab League countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel, have backed Mr. Arafat's efforts to calm the violence that has all but smothered the peace process." Efforts to calm the violence? Mr. Arafat has been orchestrating and encouraging the violence that has all but smothered the "peace process." Even a New York Times editorial on December 14 referred to Mr. Arafat's "renewed use of terrorism to pressure Israel."
Fewer Security Guards: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on an increase in the city's unemployment rate for the month of November. "Fewer people were needed to work as security guards," the Times article reports. If it is true that the rising unemployment is even a partial result of a decrease in the demand for security guards, there ought to be some statistics or discussion to back that up in the news article. In the absence of such information, a reduced demand for security guards seems improbable following the attacks of September 11. If companies are already firing the extra security guards they hired in a panic after September 11, that's a news story in itself.