I recently raised a few eyebrows with a post that — #TriggerWarning — praised The New York Times for a piece about Judge Amy Coney Barrett and why her nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court was so symbolic for cultural and religious conservatives. The headline on that post: “Speaking of people being praised: New York Times offered solid, old-school story about Barrett.”
Why was that Times report so important?
Well, no surprise here, but it was crucial that the team that produced the story include a religion-beat professional — as opposed to coming from the Donald Trump-era political desk. I also noted:
… Here is the key point I want to make: Unlike many Times stories in recent years, almost all of this material comes from qualified sources (left and right) whose names are attached to their opinions and the information they provided. There are attribution clauses all over the place, just like in Times of old.
Lo and behold, the Times followed up on that story with another religion-team feature that dug deeper on a perfectly valid point that was hinted at in the previous feature. Here’s the double-decker headline on that second story, which drew quite a bit of praise from conservatives on social media:
For Conservative Christian Women, Amy Coney Barrett’s Success Is Personal
Judge Barrett is a new kind of icon for some, one they have not seen before in American cultural and political life.
This is another fine story. However, I have one criticism of it that some may find a bit ironic, or even hard to take seriously.
The story does a fine job of demonstrating that the pro-ACB women are not a simplistic choir of cloned conservatives each with precisely the same point of view in terms of politics and culture. For example, it’s clear that some of these women are not all that fond of Trump the man or even the president. What unites them are commitments to specific values and concerns about specific moral, cultural and political issues.
This is where Judge Barrett comes into the picture. They applaud her because of her personal life, faith and choices, as well as her intellectual prowess and sparkling legal career.
So what is missing? The story briefly mentions the fierce opposition to Barrett, but never digs into the views of progressives — thus allowing Barrett supporters to debate them.
Yes, this is a Times story that needed MORE on-the-record material from the cultural left.