Still Snoozing On Edwards At The NYT

Clark Hoyt, the public editor for the New York Times, owed up to the paper’s terrible record of covering John Edwards (sort of), though he did so in a backhanded way.

I think it’s odd at the very least for Hoyt to tell us that "the old gray lady" is "doing a better job than it gets credit for" when it slights Edwards versus Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (which Hoyt admits, though he does so at the end of the column).

But to try and take back the high ground, so to speak, we have this from political editor in chief Richard Stevenson in Hoyt’s column...

“I don’t track our coverage by quantity; in a qualitative sense, we’ve covered him pretty thoroughly, and there is more to come.”

Oh, so you'll admit that there's "more to come" on Edwards? How magnanimous of you. Care to explain why the 10-state SEIU endorsement was ignored in your print edition, though noted here at The Caucus? I guess it got bumped by another "Edwards unelectability" polling story (and here’s another shining example of the Times’ otherwise fine journalism that went just a tad askew).

Perhaps Hoyt and Stevenson could take a look at this Greg Sargent post over at TPM Election Central to find out how Times staffer Leslie Wayne “reported” the following…

Mr. Edwards has made poverty his signature issue, a topic that stands in sharp contrast to his own $30 million net worth and which set him up for ridicule when it became public that he had paid $400 for a haircut.

As Sargent so correctly notes, this is not actual reporting. But as always, I have to keep reminding myself that the media, in general, doesn’t like John Edwards.

Well guys, maybe it’s time for you to start liking him, because, according to this poll, he’s running a close second behind Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses.

And of course, to learn more, click here.

Update 11/27/07: When even Bob Herbert misses the boat on Edwards here, something is seriously wrong (though Jesse Jackson is seriously right).