New York Times Editor "Regrets" Air America Silence?

As we've come to expect, Michelle's all over it:

Meanwhile, Byron Calame, "public editor" of the New York Times, has quietly filed a post to his "web journal" acknowledging that his colleagues "showed up late" to the Air America story and thus "poorly served" their readers.

Only after "weeks of articles by other newspapers" did the Times finally get around to noticing the scandal in its own backyard. And this oversight was especially regrettable, Calame allowed, in light of the "flurry of articles" the paper had run during the happy-face PR blitz surrounding Air America's debut in the spring of 2004. It's inconsistencies like these, he pointed out, that typically give rise to "a perception of liberal bias" at the Times, and before you know it, certain of the paper's right-wingier subscribers are writing in to complain.

Calame does have some good news to report, however. In this particular case, at least, any perception of liberal bias at the Times is one "for which I haven't found any evidence after checking with editors at the paper."

That's reassuring.