A news article in the Times begins:
WASHINGTON — A panel of former senior American officials and outside experts, including several who recently left the Obama administration, issued a surprisingly critical assessment of American diplomacy toward Iran on Wednesday, urging President Obama to become far more engaged and to reconsider the likelihood that harsh sanctions will drive Tehran to concessions.
This is a great example of the Times not simply reporting the news but advising readers about how they should feel about it, in this case, surprised. In fact there is nothing surprising about the Iran Project calling for more diplomacy with Iran; that's what the project was set up to do. The key participants issued more or less the same advice in a New York Review of Books article published in 2008 and in another article published in the same publication in 2009.
That, five or four years later, the same people are giving the same advice on Iran policy is not news, it's olds. It certainly is not surprising. The Times article says the report was "issued by the Iran Project," but it offers readers no explanation of what the Iran Project is, or who funds it. If it were a right-leaning group the Times might describe it as "anonymously funded," but since the group is calling for a softer line on Iran the Times is incurious about its sources of funding.