A politician kills himself. A journalist is fired. And the New York Times, demonstrating why the American press is beloved for its fair and tasteful reporting, begins its account like this: "It seemed like a throwback to 'Miami Vice.' " This reality-TV entertainment has a "storyline," the second paragraph tells us. The fired journalist is a "twist" to a "tale of sex, politics and suicide," the headline says.

Gelf is all for analysis and punchy newspaper writing, but the Times's article Friday—about South Florida politician Arthur Teele Jr.'s suicide and Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede's firing for secretly and perhaps illegally taping a phone conversation with Teele just before his suicide—was punched up with pure sensationalism; an analogy to an old TV show doesn't advance the story much. This isn't unique to the Times; Gelf noticed recently that the London bombings were being portrayed as drama.

Perhaps there's a broader mandate to spice up the Times's National Report lead page; the story below the Miami Vice tribute begins with one of the last ethnic stereotypes, the Irish short temper, to survive into 21st-century mainstream newspaper writing. "John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., has long been known as a steady-as-you-go consensus builder, but this week, when two giant unions bolted the labor federation, he got his Irish up." [emphasis added] This expression has recently graced the opinion pages of the Arizona Daily Star and the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi.