Above the fold of today's New York Times was a story by Times reporter Philip Shenon that one would have thought was a news report on Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff's recent troubles. Abramoff was indicted on fraud charges in relation to his involvement in purchasing a fleet of gambling boats in 2000.
It took Mr. Shenon a mere 5 words before Jack Abramoff became of secondary nature to the story: "Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful Republican lobbyist involved in ethics allegations facing Representative Tom DeLay, was indicted in Florida on Thursday on unrelated fraud charges involving his purchase of a fleet of gambling boats from a businessman who was slain amid bitter wrangling over the sale."
The "news" report written by Philip Shenon goes on to name House Leader Tom Delay and the Republican Party in 5 of his eighteen short paragraphs, all in a negative context. While it is true that Delay had a relationship with Abramoff, it is, as Philip Shenon himself admits in the very first paragraph of his story, "unrelated fraud charges" that should be the story.
Instead, we have another instance by a major media organ behaving as a house organ for the Democratic Party, and instilling its opinion in a news story as oppossed to reporting the facts of the story.
