The New York Times rushes to apologize for its outbreak of journalism

Having outraged its core audience, The New York Times is rushing to explain how it managed to commit journalism in covering the Senate race in Alaska.The paper last month impressed its usual critics by tracking down damning details of how Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign recruited a strawman candidate sharing the same name as the Republican incumbent, a ploy that, in concert with the state’s ranked-choice-voting rules, could make her the winner even if more people meant to vote for the real Dan Sullivan.Since Peltola’s core appeal is as an outsider, not another politician, the story of her efforts to defraud the voting public was extra-damning.But Times readers on social media and in its comment section howled about this betrayal of their expectation that the paper of record will confirm all their biases, especially “Democrats good, Republicans evil” — offering “All the news that’s fit to think.”The paper’s been rushing to control the damage with various followup offerings, including an earnest report on how Peltola had no idea what her top aides were doing and a newsletter dispatch about how “both sides do it.”The capper was the most unusual item, “Inside The Times’s Decisions on the Alaska Senate Race Story,” a long mea culpa about why the paper made such a big deal over “a strategy considered legal that has been used by Democrats and Republicans alike” and explaining how it dropped the bomb so close to Election Day.No, the Times did not offer readers such backroom details of source-checking, timing, standards and so on in its coverage of the Trump-Russia allegations — which were thoroughly exposed as fiction long after the paper won a Pulitzer for pushing them.(Then again, most Democrats still don’t realize it was all lies.)No “behind the scenes” meta-coverage, either, on its silence on the Hunter Biden laptop revelations or its relentless publication of debunked Gaza-atrocity porn.Subscribe to our dai...