The Times' insider podcast, "Inside the Times," recently featured Josh Blackman, a "conservative" law professor the paper sometimes quotes, always with that label.
"It was far more likely that you're identifying conservative than liberal," he pointed out. "Those numbers are stacked because liberals are quoted even more often. So, the numbers even have a greater disparity."
Blackman argued that this practice can create a perception of bias — an issue he originally raised in February with a letter to the editor that the Times did not publish.
This time, however, Patrick Healy, the paper's editor for trust and standards, responded publicly, admitting that Blackman was correct.
"I think there's real truth to your critique, and it's something we need to do a better job on," he said.
About a week later, the Times broke the story about Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola asking her staff to find other Dan Sullivans to run for Senate against the incumbent senator of the same name to "peel" away his votes.
Curtis Houck of the Media Research Center (MRC) says the Times deserves credit for both acts of journalism, but it has neither turned over a new leaf nor completely ditched its bias.
He thinks the "Decoy Dan" story was simply "a juicy story that you couldn't turn down."
According to his organization, The New York Times' liberal bias is historically evident in its coverage. For example, it labeled Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito as "conservative" while portraying Ruth Bader Ginsburg as more centrist in 2005, framed a Republican congressional victory negatively and described actress Patricia Heaton's pro-life views as "extreme."
MRC has also criticized the newspaper for favorable coverage of liberal political activists and for emphasizing conservative Catholic positions in its coverage of Pope Francis' election.
He thinks Healy's response about the labels was kind of a "sorry, not sorry."
"They feel like they have to own up to that they were caught, not so much that they committed any sort of wrongdoing," Houck submits.
