For example: Smith's quote from a source in the French Algerian community, stating the obviously political agenda behind the Paris riots and arson:
"It's a game that has been started between the youth and Sarkozy," said a French-Algerian man wearing Chanel sunglasses outside Aulnay's mosque, in a converted warehouse. He would give his name only as Nabil. "Until he quits," he said, "it's not going to get better."
Yet, two paragraphs later, Smith declares:
For now, the violence seems to have been the work of unfocused teenagers and young adults without a clear political agenda.
I don't believe Smith or his editors are consciously lying to New York Times readers. Rather, I think they are in denial--they cannot admit the truth, that the riots are organized by Islamist extremists--because it would shake their entire worldview. This type of denial of reality is nothing new for Times editors.
Most strikingly, during WWII, New York Times editors put reports of Hitler's extermination campaign against the Jews of Europe on the back pages, in tiny print. American Jewish groups were forced to buy full-page advertisements to alert Times readers to the Holocaust that the Times refused to acknowledge while it was taking place. You can read about it in Laurel Leff's story on the History News Network: How the NYT Missed the Story of the Holocaust While It Was Happening.
As George Santayana noted, those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it--even at the Times.
UPDATE: More on this at RogerLSimon.com
