Two days in a row I’ve read about French president Sarkozy’s visit to the USA; interesting development considering the late US-French relationship, and considering Sarkozy is newly elected in France, which is one of the most influential country in Europe, member of the EU of course, and so on. I’ve read about it at BBC , where it has been ‘first page news’.
Both yesterday and today I took a look at NY Times to see what the American newspaper wrote about it, only to find that they didn’t (if they did, I couldn’t find it).
Now, I don’t know if this is a factual question, but I’m sure the moderator’s are willing to move it if it’s not, but why isn’t a leading American newspaper interested in, for instance, according to the BBC, the fact that “French President Nicolas Sarkozy wins a standing ovation in a speech to a joint session of the US Congress”?
(Edit: 20 minutes before I wrote this, they added a link at the NY Times.)
But seriously, getting a standing ovation when addressing a joint session of Congress isn’t news. Joint sessions are notorious for congressmen breaking into standing ovations at the drop of a hat. (Although I will say that the ovation for Sarkozy went on longer than normal…
I think it’s just a matter of the NYT being slow. They’re still very much a traditional newspaper and they like to actually write things and edit them before sticking them up on the website. Contrast websites of broadcast organizations like CNN or the Beeb, who want to get information out as soon as possible, even if it’s extremely sparse and often wrong.