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They have been more statist than partisan in the recent past. The NYT editorial board is most consistent in its advocacy for additional powers being granted to the federal government.

You might say it is a mouthpiece for the government, but not the political administration; NYT tends to favor the administrative bureaucracy.

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This is a natural consequence of the type of journalism they practice.

I recently listened to an interesting interview on the BBC with the late french spy novel author Gérard de Villiers. One of the things he mentions is that journalists need sources, and to get sources you need to do favors. It's a game of you-say-something-nice-about-me-and-my-gov't-program and I'll give you a scoop. That's why they come off as slobbering the shaft of gov't officals. You don't go interview some department boss and then bad mouth him, b/c you won't get invited next time.

This is more a consequence of PR being cheap (nicely packaged chunks of the article at no cost) and journalism expensive. If the NYTimes stopped playing by various players' be-nice rules, they would still have access (they have enough relevance that blacklisting them would hurt), but it would be more expensive to produce.

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