This little exchange says a great deal about why the New York Times is a truly excellent newspaper. When the recent plot to “blow up JFK airport” was revealed, the Times looked objectively at the story and decided it did not warrant hyperbole, hysteria, or even a front page story on its print edition. From the linked article, the national editor of the Times makes the following remarks:

In the years since 9/11, there have been quite a few interrupted terrorist plots. It now seems possible to exercise some judgment about their gravity. Not all plots are the same. In this case, law enforcement officials said that J.F.K. was never in immediate danger. The plotters had yet to lay out plans. They had no financing. Nor did they have any explosives. It is with all that in mind, that the editors in charge this weekend did not put this story on the front page.

Indeed, further reports suggest that, even if it had been carried out, there was no way the terrorist plan would have had the intended effect of causing an explosion throughout the fuel lines feeding the airport – at most it would have started serious fires. As noted above, the plotters were nowhere near executing their plan, either.

Of course our only national newspaper, which unlike the Times is quite a long way away from New York, was not so restrained, but then it’s almost laughable to imagine the newspaper exercising the same sort of restraint and judgment. Here is an excerpt from The Oz’s main editorial from 5 June 2007:

THE revelation that four men from the Caribbean nations of Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago were charged with conspiring to blow up the pipelines of John F. Kennedy Airport has again exposed the hydra-headed threat posed by Islamist terrorists.