REPORT WHAT YOU WISH, NOT WHAT IS:

What does a conservative beat mean for The New York Times? (Terry Eastland, March 2, 2004, Jewish World Review)

For more than a month, one of our national papers of record, The New York Times, has been examining "conservative forces in religion, politics, law, business and the media." No, that isn't made up. The quoted material comes from Times national editor Jim Roberts, announcing last month that David D. Kirkpatrick, the former media correspondent, would patrol the new beat.

As with any press release, it deserves a question or two, beginning with why The Times thinks it can cover all of those conservative forces with only one reporter. The task would seem to require a legion of correspondents, but somehow, with just one, The Times will manage.

The "job," Mr. Roberts said, "will take [Mr. Kirkpatrick] across the country and make him a frequent presence in Washington." It will thrust him into "the political campaigns," and yet "we expect that much of what he does will transcend the race itself and delve into the issues and personalities that drive - and sometimes divide - conservatives."

In fact, division turns out to be the dominant narrative of the journalism so far. Consider the headlines of the first three stories: "Bush's push for marriage falls short for conservatives," "Conservative groups differ on Bush words on marriage," and "A concerned bloc of Republicans wonders whether Bush is conservative enough."

Here's an especially amusing instance of Mr. Kirkpatrick's style,
Gay-Marriage Fight Finds Ambivalence From Evangelicals (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 2/28/04, NY Times)

Prominent evangelical Christians in Washington have been warning the Bush administration for months that conservative Christians may not have enough motivation to vote this November if the president failed to vigorously support their effort to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

But down in the pews of Western Michigan, a major center of evangelical Protestantism, not everyone is sure that the proposed amendment matters so much.

So there are two kinds of evangelicals, those so mad about gay marriage that they won't vote for Mr. Bush and those who don't care enough about it to let it influence their vote one way or the other. The only thing missing is the other 70%, who oppose it and are going to vote for the President in record numbers.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 2, 2004 10:16 AM