Where has all the national news gone?

 Fascinating.  From the Chicago Tribune I see, at 8:26 am this morning eastern time, Chicago police return fire as looters hit Mag Mile, smashing windows and confronting officers by Paige Fry and Jeremy Gorner. 

Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, confronting police and at one point exchanging gunfire with officers, authorities said.

The officers had stopped several people on Lake Street near Michigan Avenue when shots were fired from a passing car around 4:30 a.m., nearly five hours into the widespread vandalism, according to police spokesman Tom Ahern. No officers were shot but a squad car was hit, he said. It was not known if anyone in the gunman’s car was shot.   

Ahern said other officers were injured through the night. Earlier, an officer was seen slumped against a building by Grand and Wabash avenues as other other cops tended to him. It was unclear what had happened to him. Ahern had no details on the injuries.

The looting began shortly after midnight as people darted through broken store windows and doors along Michigan Avenue carrying shopping bags full of merchandise. Cars dropped off more people as the crowd grew. At least one U-Haul van was seen pulling up.

In other reporting, I see that perhaps 500 people are involved in the riot.  The police have apparently raised the Chicago River bridges to control ingress and egress to the city.  The third largest city in America is under attack.  And the headline coverage of this major story in the New York Times at this same time?

Click to enlarge.

Silence.  Even when you go to the US section - not a word.

Cities are burning and emptying.  The future is becoming dire for those great centers of productivity and innovation.  And their decline is barely marked in the former "paper of record."

Lies by omission are sometimes the most insidious of all.  It is hard to be informed about something when you might not even know it exists. 

I am sure that the NYT will get around to some sort of article at some point.  Still, it is striking that when social media and blogs are full of the story, nothing is mentioned in the paper of record.  The gap between the news available from informal sources versus what is sanctioned by the Chattering Class gets larger every day.  

Bias?  Laziness?  No reporters available?  Editors in hiding?  Who knows?  But clearly the NYT is far from a national paper any more.