More NYT cluelessness:

The original mandate for the [conservative] beat was to examine conservative forces in religion, politics, law, business and the media. The goals of the beat, Mr. Keller said last week, continue to be identifying “the thinkers and the grass roots they organize” and exploring “how the conservative movement works to be heard in Washington.” He reiterated his strong desire for three-dimensional coverage of the conservative movement. Basically, he said, “we wanted to understand them.”
The decision not to create a liberal beat, it seems to me, reflected the reality that The Times’s coverage of liberals had no gaps similar to those in its reporting on the conservative movement.
The new beat and the prominent display that Mr. Keller and his editors have given significant articles it produces have spawned a greater awareness of conservative perspectives across the newsroom. “It’s created a kind of awakening,” Suzanne Daley, the national editor, said. “It’s definitely contagious.”

When NYT’s David Sanger refers to William F. Buckley as a “neoconservative,” the awareness of conservative perspectives obviously isn’t contagious enough.