How the New York Times Came to Love JC Penney

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The Times ombudsmen scolds Cintra Wilson for a column she wrote recently about J.C. Penney coming to midtown Manhattan, or rather, waddling into Manhattan in its “big ole shorts and flip-flops.” “A virtual sneer seeming to drip from her keyboard,” the ombudsman complains. I love it when the Times pretends to be populist. Yes, a paper that regularly wallows in inside-Hamptons gossip is very pro- JC Penney’s. Gawker fingers Wilson’s real sin: Times editor Bill Keller’s mom apparently shopped there, too.

Photograph of a department store by Getty Images.