Glenn Reynolds notes that between its news and editorial sections, the Times can't come to a conclusion on the health of the American economy. (The news section reports that it is; naturally, the Times' editorial section disagrees.)

Meanwhile, the Times still can't decide whether or not it wants to admit that it's biased, and is retreating to its Howell Raines-ish ways, despite former ombudsman Daniel Okrent's efforts to drag the paper up off its feet. As we observed last year, in an Insta-Power-Line-lanched post:

Howell Raines, February 20, 2003:

"Our greatest accomplishment as a profession is the development since World War II of a news reporting craft that is truly non-partisan, and non-ideological, and that strives to be independent of undue commercial or governmental influence....But we don’t wear the political collar of our owners or the government or any political party. It is that legacy we must protect with our diligent stewardship. To do so means we must be aware of the energetic effort that is now underway to convince our readers that we are ideologues. It is an exercise of, in disinformation, of alarming proportions, this attempt to convince the audience of the world’s most ideology-free newspapers that they’re being subjected to agenda-driven news reflecting a liberal bias.”

Daniel Okrent, July 25, 2004:

Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?

Of course it is.

Gee, that only took 70 years to admit.

Apparently, as Mediacrity observes (found via Michelle Malkin), their current ombudsman, Barney Calame, never got the memo. Of the Air America scandal (where reporting by blogs such as Malkin's and Brian Maloney's Radio Equalizer are running rings around the Times), Calame writes:

There's another reason to get to the bottom of the [Air America] scandal. It's the perception problem — a perception of liberal bias for which I haven't found any evidence after checking with editors at the paper.

For an ombudsman to say with a straight face that he doesn't know the ideology of his newspaper is just staggering. And there's no way, after Okrent's admission last year, and the numerous examples of the Times' involvement in Senator Kerry's presidential campaign for him to claim that his paper has no bias.

Indeed, one of the great byproducts of last year's presidential race, was that virtually all big city newspapers let their partisanship fly, for all of their readers to see. The damage that most news organizations did to their credibility was staggering, but ironically, the end result was actually a healthy thing in perverse way: last year marked the end of feigning objectivity. It's now pretty obvious to most readers who care, what the ideology of the local paper is. And the Blogosphere makes it a breeze for readers to find news sources more in-tune with theirs.

As Howard Fineman of Newsweek wrote shortly after the election:

A political party is dying before our eyes — and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the "mainstream media," which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards.

Despite all that, apparently, the Times would like to shove Okrent's essay down the memory hole, and assume that nobody will remember it, and return to their Pinch-driven Rainesian hyperpartisanship, all the while denying any bias. But that's a lot harder to do with a growing number of Weblogs looking on, archiving their excesses, and illuminating them for their readers.

Update: Related thoughts from Betsy Newmark.