World politics and the environment...

The Times covered Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's stance on the environment during her trip to China this past weekend. The article, written by reporter Mark Landler, provided information about how Clinton handled herself when speaking about the topic of climate change. According to the article, she asked China to work with the US on controlling the climate crisis and, more specifically, curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The article itself was fairly balanced when it came to the issues at hand. A lot of Clinton's stances were also followed up by the stance a representative of China took on the topic. Additionally, when it also talked about human rights issues that came up during the visit, it told us what a specific human rights group had said, which contradicted what the government of China said. It also was balanced in neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Clinton's controversial statement about the issue of human rights, simply stating that it was very different from her stance in 1995.

It pointed out that the issue of climate change was becoming a tool and a reason for bringing the two countries together and united on a common idea without saying it flat out but rather using others' quotes to say it. Again, fair reporting.

However, there was a bit of editorializing as well, primarily when discussing the reactions of people. For example, describing Dai Bingguo as "warmer" towards Clinton, and described Clinton as "nonplused." It doesn't really change the story by putting a spin on facts, but it is still editorializing nonetheless.

Also, I thought the story was poorly structured...I didn't understand why the article went on a huge tangent about the human rights and economic issues that were brought up rather than finishing relaying the information about the environment and then talking about the other issues. I just think that it didn't really stick to the point when the reporter/editor decided to do that.

Here's a link to the article, for your reading pleasure: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/world/asia/22diplo.html?_r=1&ref=earth

Digression: What's up with the NYT diverging from AP Style and referencing people by their titles? As in, "Mr. Yang," and, "Mrs. Clinton." I don't really see the point. But if anyone has any further insight into this oddity, let me know.