Still the same old Times...

I have been cautiously optimistic about the steps the NYT has taken under the leadership of new Executive Editor Bill Keller: appointing an ombudsman to act as a clearing house for reader concerns, annointing two new Managing Editors, Jill Abramson and John Geddes, including the first woman to ever hold this post at the Times, and appearing to liberalize the NYT's policy on bylines in favor of greater disclosure of who actually worked on a story.   Its too early to tell, but I had been hoping that these personnel changes would result in a more centrist editorial line at the paper.   Dream on...

Today's editorial on "The Growing Inmate Population", was a refreshing blast of classic Timesian liberal silliness.   Their main argument; that "when crime is falling and state and local governments are struggling to close budget deficits. The price of imprisoning so many Americans is too high, in scarce tax dollars and in wasted lives."   The editorial was clearly motivated by an Associated Press article on the release of new statistics from the DoJ on the US inmate population that appeared in last Sunday's WaPo, without any credit being offered.

The Times also couldn't spare a sentence in its 390 word editorial for the opposing argument that perhaps, just perhaps, the crime rates are down because more of the people who would otherwise commit crimes are instead locked in prison.   This point was made by the NY Post in its Wednesday editorial responding to the original AP article, which, by the way, it actually mentioned.   The Post's point?   That keeping felons locked up not only lowered crime, but also saved money, when the cost of the crimes being prevented are taken into consideration.

Now the Times has the right to say what they want in their editorials (as well as the rest of their paper, of course).   But wouldn't it advance the public debate if the contra-arguments to a policy were at least mentioned?   Reasonable people can disagree about the complexities of sorting out causality and correlation, but only dishonest people fail to mention that there is an issue here.

I guess the reality is that the Times is a liberal paper because it is controlled by "Pinch" Sulzberger and his family. As Robert Bartley eloquently put it in his Monday column:

I frankly doubt that Mr. Keller will succeed in restoring objectivity or balance to the Times newsroom. Former executive editor A.M. Rosenthal, actually a conservative, had a hard enough time. Then too, the current tone and culture are the work of publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., who remains in charge at the sufferance of his family.

Fair enough, they own the paper, they should call the shots.   (Though the Sulzberger family actually owns less than 5% of the Company, however, they control the election of 70% of the directors, so they have effective control.)   But is it too much to ask that the Times formally abandon this pretense of "objectivity" and just 'fess up to the fact that they are a liberal paper, and damn proud to be one?   Maybe its just me, but I would find it a whole lot easier to bear if they were to just acknowledge this one particular "moose in the middle of the table".