When It Raines, It Pours? The embattled New York Times may be getting the message.

TontoKowalski says he watched Hardball last night, and they discussed how the NYT just ran an objective, unbiased story on abortion on the front page.

Is THIS it? It actually does seem like a simple news story, no rhetorical jabs.

I didn't watch Hardball, so I don't know what story they were talking about.

NBC news absolutely HAMMERED this story last night - the staff at NBC will be getting no Christmas cards from the Times this year! ABC & CBS touched only lightly on the story ...

Here's how it was "hammered," according to the MRC:

In the wake of the resignations of the top two editors at the New York Times, NBC News looked at declining trust in the media overall and identified two culprits: Conservative, pro- corporate bias and the Fox News Channel.

In a NBC Nightly News piece on Thursday night, reporter Jim Avila noted that "media watchdogs complain almost daily of bias, charging that some stories are deliberately ignored." His sole soundbite for that point: a representative of the far-left group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, who charged that public cynicism toward the press is fueled by "the whole corporate climate, where people feel they're being sold to rather than informed."

Then, over video of the Fox News Channel, Avila blamed it too: "And some experts say opinion-based journalism, so popular on cable TV, undercuts credibility."

As opposed to the opinion-based journalism of NBC News and the rest of the news media, as if there were no bias in the media until FNC came along a few years ago.

The June 5 NBC Nightly News led with a story by Andrea Mitchell about the resignations of Times Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd and then Tom Brokaw went to Avila in Chicago for a look at how the public views the media.

Avila began with a Spokane artist who sees routine mistakes in stories about him and then Avila recalled how "a 2002 Pew Research study shows that only 35 percent of the public trust news organizations to 'get the facts straight.'"

Next, Avila gave a soundbite to a man in restaurant who doesn't believe all he reads in newspapers and Avila confirmed he has "plenty of reasons" to think that way. Avila reminded viewers of NBC's own Dateline NBC simulated truck explosion controversy, the case of Janet Cooke at the Washington Post in 1981, Stephen Glass at the New Republic who "imagined" stories in 1998 "and Mike Barnicle's factual carelessness for the Boston Globe."

Avila didn't mention that NBC has helped rehabilitate the ethically-challenged Barnicle by making him a fill-in host and regular commentator on MSNBC.

Avila asserted: "Jayson Blair is just the latest example of journalistic fraud chipping away at an industry built on trust. How bad is it? Denver's Rocky Mountain News, a subscriber to the New York Times News Service, no longer automatically runs stories based on Times's unnamed sources."

John Temple, Editor of the Rocky Mountain News: "Somehow, standards seem to erode in their newsroom."

Avila turned to bias, but only saw it from the right: "But it's not just mistakes, say critics. Media watchdogs complain almost daily of bias, charging that some stories are deliberately ignored."

Steve Rendell, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting: "The cynicism that people have about media isn't just about Jayson Blair and Mike Barnicle. It's about the whole corporate climate, where people feel they're being sold to rather than informed."

Avila: "And some experts say opinion-based journalism, [over video of the Fox News Channel showing FNC putting its logo on screen as music played] so popular on cable TV, undercuts credibility. Viewers now charge bias against any news they don't agree with."

Greg Mitchell, Editor and Publisher magazine Editor: "They often disagree with stories because they don't agree with the political outlook or the revelations that are in those stories."

Avila concluded: "And journalistic missteps like those in the New York Times only give ammunition to those who believe even true stories are fiction."

"It wasn't till the internet that people started questioning the NY Times..."

Absolutely. The free flow of information allowed by the Net and the power of knowledge to educate, equalize and liberate may even surpass what Gutenberg began with his printing press.

Krugman may survive, as Luskin says, but I bet he's feeling more than a little insecure today, which is a happy thought to contemplate.

Yep, the Times buried yet another correction in today's paper, while on the facing page columns by Krugman and some other gimp made outrageously false statements that require two more.