Barrett Toasts the Times: Well Done

In last week's Village Voice Wayne Barrett goes into chapter and verse as to why he feels that the NY Times's coverage of the mayoral campaign was both inadequate and biased. The one thing that really caught our eye was the following question: "How many Times investigative pieces appeared on Ferrer? 4 (5,207 words). How many on Bloomberg? 1 (562 words).

The reason this got our attention was the fact that the one Times piece on Bloomberg was done by Charles Bagli on the sweetheart deal at the BTM. What is important to point out here, underscoring the credibility of Barrett's piece, is that even here the Times actually began its look at the Terminal Market deal weeks before with a critical questioning of why Freddy Ferrer wouldn't attend a merchant press conference attacking the deal.

So in the one major Times expose Freddy still came in for criticism even though, as we pointed out, he had nothing to do with the crafting of the curious arrangement. His only sin was one of omission and yet the paper actually first mentions the whole scheme in a piece on the mayor's challenger and not on the culprits themselves.