cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25283

The New York Times (1/27/26) employs artful ambiguity: “Something needs to change,” but it’s not saying what. People watched “scenes from the violent unrest,” with no specifics on who exactly was violent. That prompted “reflection about where the nation is heading”—wherever that is.

The New York Times is addicted to bothsidesing. Even when you have examples on video of people being shot down on the street by federal agents, the paper has to pretend there’s a valid case for justifying murder: on the one hand, on the other.

Here’s the Times‘ Dan Barry (1/27/26) describing the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis:

Federal officials have maintained that the agent acted in self-defense, while state and local officials have disputed that account of the fatal moment, which was filmed from several angles.

The day before, Mark Scheffler of the Times‘ “Visual Investigations” team published a story headlined “How We Determined That Minneapolis Videos Contradicted Federal Officials.” But such determinations—the “ground truth” of “what happened, how it happened and who might be responsible”—evidently only apply in the moment that they’re made; they don’t affect the paper’s ongoing coverage.

Presumably, Barry looked at that “fatal moment,” filmed from several angles—and couldn’t tell whether the agent was acting in self-defense or not.

Barry went on to say of the slaying of Alex Pretti:

Many people could not help but see the disturbing video, hear the Trump administration’s rushed justifications—including the unsubstantiated claim by Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, that Mr. Pretti had been out to “massacre law enforcement”—and ruminate.

Was the VA nurse out to “massacre law enforcement”? Maybe, but that claim is “unsubstantiated.” It’s the kind of thing that might drive a desperate public to…ruminate.

This is the reflexive mode for New York Times coverage—because pretending you don’t know what’s going on makes you a real reporter, according to the Times handbook. Apparently nothing defends democracy like acting like perhaps there isn’t any threat to democracy.

‘Both sides dug their heels in’

The New York Times (1/28/26) reports that Minnesota “officers find themselves caught between powerful political forces beyond their control”—those “powerful political forces” being the federal Department of Homeland Security and neighborhood watch groups.

The Times‘ Reis Thebault and Chelsia Rose Marcius (1/28/26), reporting from Minneapolis, found there was “‘No Win’ for Minneapolis Police Caught Between Trump and City Residents”:

The Trump administration has accused the Minneapolis Police Department of abandoning its beleaguered federal agents. Some city residents say they are the ones being abandoned, by police officers who are paid to protect them and have done nothing of the sort.

On the one hand, “Demonstrators have…pleaded for more protection from the Minneapolis Police Department.” But “pressure is also coming from the Trump administration, which has demanded cooperation and collaboration from local law enforcement authorities.”

The Minneapolis Police Department, we’re told, are “caught in the middle.” “Both sides dug their heels in, and here we are in the middle of it,” said a St. Paul police union official.

Should local police be protecting the people from government, or protecting the government from the people? To the New York Times, this is an insoluble dilemma.

Not the Pitchbot

It took four different New York Times reporters (1/15/26) to bring us the news that customers at Ye Old Pickle Factory in Nisswa, Minnesota, think that Minneapolis is scary.

Sometimes the impulse goes all the way to self-parody. The NYT Pitchbot, a Threads account devoted to mocking the Times, sells merch with the slogan “In this Ohio diner….”—a reference to the paper’s endless “Trump Supporters Support Trump” stories (FAIR.org, 2/15/17, 7/24/19), a genre that often includes a visit to a rural eatery.

But there’s no way the Pitchbot can compete with the actual Times invitation (1/15/26), under the headline “One State, Two Very Different Views of Minneapolis,” to “pull up a stool at Ye Old Pickle Factory and listen to a story about America’s urban/rural divide.” Here’s how that story goes:

In Minneapolis, protesters saw an innocent woman killed by a federal agent and took to the streets. At “the Pickle,” the regulars saw a woman who should have complied.

What actually happened? Strange as it may seem, the New York Times does not think telling you that is a newspaper’s job.

ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com or via Bluesky*:@NYTimes.com. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.*

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