The Times Dealbook section features a special report on "How To Fix America." Explains the Times, "we asked top experts for one idea..." Somewhat jarringly, the second "expert" on the list is Robert F. Smith, chief executive of Vista Equity Partners, who proposes to "persuade" companies to "donate 2 percent of their income to do good." The Times doesn't mention it, but here is a report from last month in the Washington Post:

Smith had a secret: He'd played a role in what federal prosecutors allege was the biggest tax evasion scheme in U.S. history, an effort by his longtime associate, Texas billionaire Robert Brockman, to hide $2 billion from tax authorities in an offshore scheme featuring a computer program called Evidence Eliminator and code names such as "Redfish" and "Snapper."

The first person makes an unusual and arguably jarring appearance in the top front-page news article of today's print New York Times. In an article about the coronavirus, Donald G. McNeil Jr. writes:

In mid-October, I surprised some New York Times readers by shifting from pessimism to optimism, with the epidemic in the United States most likely ending sooner than I expected. Now that at least two vaccines with efficacy greater than 90 percent have emerged, I am even more hopeful about what 2021 holds.

It's all a bit too meta- for my taste. I'd rather hear about the virus and the vaccines than how the virus and vaccine matches the prior expectations of the Times reporter, or the reporter's vacillation between "pessimism" and "optimism," however those are defined. At least in the front-page news articles. But I am even less hopeful than I was about the possibility of the New York Times adhering to longstanding journalistic conventions.

From a New York Times business section article on journalist Glenn Greenwald's resignation from the Intercept: "At the time of the leaks, Mr. Greenwald worked for the United States edition of The Guardian newspaper, and the aggressive reporting he conducted with two colleagues, Ewen MacAskill and the documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, gave The Guardian US the Pulitzer Prize in service journalism in 2014."

The 2014 Pulitzer won by The Guardian US was for public service, not "service journalism," which is a term for how-to articles that help readers do things: "How to be productive while working at home," "How to renovate your kitchen without losing your mind," etc. There is no Pulitzer Prize in "service journalism," unfortunately for the hardy souls who churn out these articles, which do, when well done, provide a service to readers, though less glamorously than the investigative crusades that often win the Pulitzer for public service.

Two exhibits in today's installment of "I don't know who these guys think their intended audience is, but I don't think this was written for me":

Exhibit no. 1: The front page of the New York Times food section carries an article headlined "Income Inequality And Great Wines." It complains that "Income Inequality Has Erased Your Chance to Drink the Great Wines." The lead example involves how "back in 1994, a bottle of Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny 1991, a grand cru, retailed for $80 (the equivalent of $141 in 2020, accounting for inflation). Today, that bottle costs about $800."

"It is impossible for most people to pay for these wines," the Times article complains.

The article does not mention that $800 is less than the price of a seven-day home delivery subscription to the Times, which is now $20 a week, or $1,050 a year. Nor does it consider the possibility that a group of people might chip in and share an expensive bottle.

More and more, the Times is so "woke" as to be almost unreadable.

The Sunday "T" magazine carries an adoring profile of Angela Davis, labeled under the category "The Greats."

Among the highlights, or lowlights, depending on how you see it:

In 2018, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama invited her to receive an award, which was rescinded three months later after unnamed members of the community complained to the board about her support for Palestinian rights and a boycott of Israel. (The institute eventually reversed its decision and issued Davis a public apology.)

Then:

Throughout the '70s and '80s, as the Communist Party U.S.A.'s presence dwindled, and Communist regimes worldwide became increasingly totalitarian, Davis remained a staunch supporter of the party's ideas, twice running as its candidate for vice president in the '80s. In 1991, she stepped away, along with a number of other members, because the party refused to engage in processes of democratization...

A New York Times op-ed by Stephen Wertheim, "deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University," includes this passage:

Citing China's "bankrupt totalitarian ideology," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heralds a new dawn for U.S. leadership. "Securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party," he said in July, "is the mission of our time."

Is it? China is authoritarian and on the rise. But it is hardly Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. China is open for business, whether on fair terms or not; the world's largest trading nation makes a strange candidate for a totalitarian menace whose every activity closes off the earth. And unlike 20th-century rivals, China has long abstained from armed conquest. Though it threatens Taiwan, no one thinks it is about to invade U.S. allies like South Korea or Japan.

A New York Times "fact check" of a Trump campaign commercial faults the ad: "Later, the ad says Mr. Trump is 'developing a vaccine in record time.' While potential vaccines may arrive in record time, they are being developed by private companies, not by Mr. Trump or his administration."

Who will fact check the fact-checkers?

Here is the New York Times's Science section's own "vaccine tracker."

Pfizer: "The Trump administration awarded a $1.9 billion contract in July for 100 million doses to be delivered by December and the option to acquire 500 million more doses."

The double standards of the New York Times are on clear display in the newspaper's coverage of illegal drugs.

Sunday's New York Times style section carries a mostly laudatory feature about parents turning to drugs during the pandemic: "Though there aren't reliable statistics that break down parents' use of alcohol, marijuana and anti-anxiety medications specifically, overall adult use of these substances has gone up since the pandemic began, said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse."

The Sunday Times Real Estate section, under the headline "Love and the Lockdown," devotes a page to stories of couples deciding to move in together during the pandemic. The article mentions, and includes photographs of, six different couples, all six of whom appear to be white and heterosexual. If a Republican campaign rally or political convention or corporate board looked like this, the Times would be all over it for the lack of diversity.

The latest example of how the New York Times is throwing traditional journalistic objectivity overboard in its effort to defeat President Trump comes toward the end of a long investigative article (the second in a series) about the president's tax returns. The Times writes, "After he announced his candidacy in 2015 with racist comments about Mexicans, NBC, which carried 'The Apprentice,' cut ties with him and he sold his interest in the Miss Universe pageant, another reliable moneymaker."

The approaching election seems to be tempting the New York Times into partisanship.

Here are three recent examples where the Times seems to have stopped even attempting to appear neutral.

Example No. 1. A Times news article headlined "Justice Dept. Aids Trump's False Narrative on Voting." This almost comically tilted article begins:

In the effort led by President Trump to create a misleading impression of widespread voter fraud, administration and campaign officials have seized on nine mail-in military ballots in a Pennsylvania county that Mr. Trump won by 20 points in 2016.

Federal officials have disclosed that they are investigating whether local elections officials improperly discarded the ballots, at least seven of which were cast for Mr. Trump, they said.

Today's New York Times offers a rare opportunity for a side-by-side comparison of how the newspaper covers Democrats and Republicans with similar policies.

Here is a passage from a Times news article about President Trump proposing an arms sale to Taiwan: "The proposed sales come as President Trump and his campaign strategists try to paint him as tough on China in the run-up to the election in November. They are eager to divert the conversation among American voters away from Mr. Trump's vast failures on the coronavirus pandemic and the economy, and to paper over his constant praise for Xi Jinping, China's authoritarian leader, and his earlier encouragement or tolerance of some of Mr. Xi's most repressive policies, including in the regions of Xinjiang and Hong Kong."

Over at the Algemeiner, I have a piece headlined "New York Times Marks World War II Anniversary With Harsh Criticism of U.S."

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A subheadline in the New York Times magazine, over an article about Donald Trump, Jr., reports, "Of all the president's children, he has the strongest connection to the politics, voters and online disinformation ecosystem that put his father in the White House."