The other day, Daniel Okrent of the New York Times reported without doubt that the reporters and editorial board at his current employer do work independently of one anohter. Assuming this is the case at other large news organizations, I guess we have to start blaming individual reporters for spreading liberal opinion through the hard news sections.

Back on March 18, Paul Blustein and Richard Leiby of the Washington Post reported -

Battle lines hardened yesterday over President Bush's nomination of Paul D. Wolfowitz to become president of the World Bank, as U.S. officials pressed for swift approval by the bank's board and some European officials vowed to resist.

The deputy defense secretary's nomination, already hugely controversial because of his role as a key architect of the Iraq war, drew fresh denunciations in European capitals, where critics fumed that Washington had failed to consult other member countries of the bank before springing its choice on them.

How is it possible that less than two weeks later, Reuters can report the following -

The European Union gave U.S. nominee Paul Wolfowitz a green light on Wednesday by calling him the "incoming president of the World Bank" on the eve of a board meeting to choose a new head of the development bank.

After the U.S. deputy defense secretary met senior European finance and development officials in Brussels, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said on behalf of the EU: "We had a constructive and friendly meeting where European ministers were putting all the questions they wanted to put to the incoming president of the World Bank."

However, no article would be complete without finding something bad to say -

EU governments have mostly avoided public criticism of a man more widely associated with the unilateral use of U.S. military power rather than with development assistance. But some non-government organizations have slammed the choice.

Since governments are by definition public bodies, I think it´s laughable that by definition Reuters suggests that there is some other form of criticism from government officials that is representative of the whole body, especially without naming sources.