A dispatch from Jerusalem in today's New York Times reports on interviews with the captain of the ship that was caught delivering Iranian weapons to the Palestine Liberation Organization. "The interviews with the captain were rationed to selected news organizations," the Times reports. That's a pretty amusing line. It sure looks like code for "the New York Times was not among the selected news organizations and is peeved about it." If the New York Times had scored one of those interviews, do you think the newspaper would have noted that "The interviews with the captain were rationed to selected news organizations"? Unlikely. Just about anyone with newsworthy interviews worth granting "rations" the interviews to selected news organizations; the practice is entirely routine. When the New York Times is among the news organizations that are granted the interviews, the newspaper hardly ever notes that the interviews were rationed to selected outlets. The White House routinely rations out interviews to the New York Times and Washington Post -- and sometimes to the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today, too -- that the other papers have to wait until the next day for, or that the other papers are denied entirely. The Times usually attributes the information garnered in such interviews by writing, "a senior administration official said" or "White House officials said." Not, "a senior administration official said in an interview that was rationed to selected news organizations, including the New York Times."
Double Jeopardy: An article in today's New York Times reports on the decision of a federal appeals panel to order a new trial for two men who had been convicted of federal civil rights violations stemming from their behavior in the 1991 Crown Heights riot. The Times manages to write the entire article without once calling the riot what it was -- a riot. Instead the newspaper euphemises, referring to "unrest" and "violence" and "events." The newspaper also dwells on the jury selection in the original federal trial, but it never once mentions the truly knotty constitutional issue involved -- double jeopardy.
Note: Smartertimes.com is in Florida and is operating this morning off the New York Times on the Web.