Sometimes You Need to Dig a Little to Unearth the Point of an NYT Story

New York Times (10/21/16): All the news that makes you snooze.

Last week the New York Times (10/21/16) had a story from the trial of the aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who partially closed the George Washington Bridge between New Jersey and New York City, allegedly to punish a New Jersey mayor who had refused to endorse Christie. The Times headline read:

Christie Aide Testifies She Thought Bridge Lane Closings Were a Traffic Study

That’s an odd claim, I guess. But that’s not all that Bridget Anne Kelly, former Christie aide, had to say at the trial—as Times reporter Kate Zernike slipped in at the end of her lead paragraph:

The former aide to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey at the center of the political plot to close access lanes at the George Washington Bridge broke her long silence in federal court on Friday, saying that the idea to close the lanes had been sold to her as a policy matter to move traffic more rapidly across the Hudson River, and that the governor had signed off on it.

Wait—”the governor had signed off on it”? You mean former presidential candidate and top Trump surrogate Chris Christie has been directly linked in sworn testimony to the biggest scandal of his administration? That seems like bigger news than the fact that an obscure former state employee offered a rather implausible alibi at her trial.

As it turns out, most other news outlets did not share the Times‘ sense of newsworthiness. Here’s some representative headlines:

• “Ex-Aide: Christie Knew of Bridgegate Plan Before ‘Traffic Problems’ Email,” USA Today (10/21/16)
• “Ex-Christie Aide: I Told Gov. About ‘Bridgegate’ Lane Closures,” NBCNews.com (10/21/16)
• “Tearful Christie Aide on Trial Says She Told Governor of ‘Traffic Study,'” Chicago Tribune (10/21/16)
• “Bridgegate Trial: Aide Says Christie Knew of Traffic-Snarling Plan Well in Advance,” NPR (10/21/16)
• “Former Christie Aide Bridget Kelly Testifies Governor Knew About Bridge Lane Closures a Month Before They Happened,” New York Magazine (10/21/16)
• “Tearful Bridgegate Defendant Says Christie Knew About Scheme, Threw Bottle at Her,” Politico (10/21/16)
• “Bridgegate Defendant: Christie Was ‘Fine’ With Lane Closures,” Philly.com (10/21/16)

What the New York Times did is called “burying the lead”—hiding the most important aspect of the story—even though, technically, it’s right there at the end of the lead paragraph. In another story this week, Times readers had to read quite a bit farther down to get to the real point of the story.

The New York Times (10/24/16) asks a good question, hides the interesting answer.

That story would be “Why the Justice Dept. Will Have Far Fewer Watchdogs in Polling Places,” by Eric Lichtblau (10/24/16). For the first half of the story, the answer to the question posed by the story seems fairly straightforward:

For the first time since the days of poll taxes and literacy tests a half-century ago, the Justice Department will be sharply restricted in how it can deploy some of its most powerful weapons to deter voter intimidation in the presidential election.

Because of a Supreme Court ruling three years ago, the department will send special election observers inside polling places in parts of only four states on Election Day, a significant drop from 2012, when it sent observers to jurisdictions in 13 states….

Since 1965, federal officials have sent about 32,000 observers to jurisdictions with histories of harassing minority voters or even outright denying them access to the ballot. But officials say their hands are now tied by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As a result of that decision, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Justice Department will send observers only to jurisdictions where it already has court approval. That encompasses seven counties or jurisdictions in Alaska, California, Louisiana and New York.

So the answer is: because the Supreme Court won’t let them? Well, not exactly, as we start to learn in the 12th paragraph of the 23-paragraph story:

The Shelby ruling did not specifically address the Justice Department’s authority to send observers inside polling places. But [Civil Rights Division head Vanita] Gupta said department lawyers had interpreted the decision to mean that officials could send observers only into jurisdictions where there was already a relevant court order regarding voting practices….

That broad interpretation has puzzled some legal scholars on both the left and the right.

“I was a little surprised by the Justice Department’s decision, to be honest,” Derek T. Muller, a conservative scholar on election law at Pepperdine University School of Law, said.

Mr. Muller said he believed that the Justice Department could legally send observers to jurisdictions not specifically covered by court orders. “Until a court tells them otherwise, that provision is still on the books,” he said.

If Justice’s decision was puzzling across the political spectrum, perhaps the piece could have signaled that early on, giving the Obama administration some responsibility for how it chooses to enforce the law—rather than reporting that “the Justice Department will be sharply restricted,” as though it had no say in the matter.

Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can follow him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.

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