Barely more than twenty-four hours after the firing of James Comey as the director of the fbi, the following headline appeared in The New York Times: “Sense of Crisis Deepens as Trump Defends f.b.i. Firing.” Had the “sense of crisis” had a chance appreciably to “deepen” in such a short time? And wasn’t it deep enough to begin with, at least according to the previous day’s Times, to warrant a comparison to the undoubtedly deep crisis of Watergate? Without even going on to read the article, one had the impression that Michael D. Shear, Jennifer Steinhauer, and Matt Flegenheimer were all doing their darnedest to make us see the crisis as deepening—perhaps even to see it as a crisis—but quite independently of any facts they might have to place in evidence for such a congenial conclusion.

Whenever I see a headline like that one, I think of Michael Cieply’s shockingly unshocked account for Deadline Hollywood last November of the difference he found working for The New York Times compared with The Los Angeles Times:

For starters, it’s important to accept that The New York Times has always—or at least for many decades—been a far more editor-driven, and self-conscious, publication than many of those with which it competes. Historically, The Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you