New York Times blog, week 2

Monday, February 9

My delivery of The New York Times did not come. Called service number. It has arrived since
Tuesday, February 10

The front page story on reintroduction of indulgences in the Catholic Church struck me as being a great international story that might make a good local story if the right material comes up. According to the story, plenary indulgences have not been used since The Second Vatican Council. As indulgences, charitable actions, pilgrimages and other works cut back or eliminate time spent in Purgatory. I guess I’d be hoping a good human interest story might come up, maybe a little eccentric, if this were to develop into a good local story.

Wednesday, February 11

I’m not unappreciative of the daily update stories on the economy, but they don’t stand out no matter how many are on the front page. Today’s “On the Trial of War Criminals…” stood out for me because of its focus on ethics in journalism. Not only is the core material, NBC’s faux pas in capturing an accused war criminal, gripping but the coincidences of the story as well. It seems almost too amazing that the president of Goucher College, where the man accused of genocide was a professor, was a journalist at NPR and one of the first to disagree with NBC’s sensationalist, unusual tactics.

Thursday, February 12

Besides being notable for unfortunate, slightly bizarre stories (man dragged 20 miles under van, suspected Nazi attack, suicide bombing deaths) and over advertising for Valentine’s Day, today’s NY Times had a steadying parallel to all the usual stories about the US economy: a graphics account of Dubai’s economic downturn—foreign workers abandoning cars and maxed out, unpaid credit cards while fleeing the country, house prices down 30%, luxury cars losing 40% value in 2 months, and wages for still existent jobs down by 50% or more. Compared to the daily stories about our economic problems, this had a more severe, more sensational edge. Maybe it was meant to be more of a stand alone, whereas the US stories are updates that will be updated tomorrow (which makes them boring and obvious, without negating their usefulness).