While the Washington Post, USA Today, Chicago Tribune and other media outlets perform admirable jobs of covering the DeLay press conference yesterday; the New York Times pulls off another hack job. As the cited examples I mention above indicate, journalists do not have to praise conservative leaders or issues to be considered objective by the Beltway Buzz. They simply need to be fair and accurate. Again, the Times fails.

They lead their coverage of DeLay’s press conference with the following passage:

“Deflecting all questions about his ethical conduct and political future, Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, on Wednesday stepped up his crusade against judges,”

DeLay has not dodged questions concerning the expenditures of his foreign travels under question. DeLay and his spokesman Dan Allen answered questions for weeks. What DeLay understands however, is that the media will keep asking the same questions that have already been answered to give the story the appearance of being fresh. That is why he is now deferring comments until the Ethics committee convenes.

The Times finally gets around to acknowledging this – in their 19th paragraph of a 22 paragraph story.