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Times Public Editor: let's worry about an overplayed article (about Mitt Romney); the same criticism should have been operative in 2006

From the New York Times's Public Editor, Arthur Brisbane, in When Packaging Oversteps the Facts:
A NEWS article ultimately is judged on much more than its raw factual ingredients. Its points of emphasis, headline, length and position on the page combine to couch the article in a way that delivers its intended meaning and significance.

...“This is a reminder that the fairest story in the world can seem exaggerated when it’s overplayed,” added Mr. [Jerry] Ceppos, a former executive editor of The San Jose Mercury News.
The column concerns a front-page article on Mitt Romney and his passive investment in a fund that owns a company used by China to suppress dissidents.

But couldn't the criticisms--and even more of them--have been applied to the Times's misguided 2006 lead story about the phantom Atlantic Yards scaleback? That time, however, Brisbane's predecessor pronounced all OK, and failed, unlike Brisbane, to survey some other experts.

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