The Columbia Journalism Review got around to noticing that last week's New York Times report on the comments of retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez vis a vis the media failed to make it into reporter David S. Cloud's piece.

Cloud’s remarks left me with two questions. First, why didn’t he include any mention in his article of the press criticism made by Sanchez? It’s not even peripherally mentioned in Cloud’s piece. Granted it may have been the same old points that are made again and again, but if it constituted half of what the general had to say, shouldn’t it at least be included in a report on his speech?

But the more pressing question is this: Was Sanchez’s criticism so “bruising” that Cloud felt a bit of animosity towards him? After all, even though we don’t know exactly what Sanchez said, the Times likely was among those in his crosshairs (explicitly or not) when he went “on and on,” as Cloud put it, on this subject. Isn’t it legitimate to wonder if this biased Cloud against the general and everything he had to say? (It would have made me incapable of writing a measured story, were I in Cloud’s position.) At the very least, shouldn’t Cloud have acknowledged the press criticism as a way of letting us know that it might be a mitigating factor in his objectively covering Sanchez’s remarks? I think so.

Of course, this applies to just about every single media report on Sanchez's comments. The Washington Post did summarize the press criticism in its report -- in the final paragraph. But aside from Fox News picking up on the blogosphere reaction the following week, no other media outlet noted that Sanchez had said anything at all about the media and its coverage of the Iraq war.

CJR's little bit of press criticism focusing on Cloud masks the fact that the vast majority of the media was guilty of the same journalistic crime -- whether or not they had a personal horse in the race.