Do Newspapers Think We're Blind?

Sometimes I'm convinced that mainstream journalists (printer reporters, editors, TV news stations, etc) think we're idiots.  Especially when it comes to ignoring things that we may have read on each others' pages. 

The latest example of this is the New York Times, which today is running a story about the growing influence of the Gates Foundation over education issues.  Thing is, Associated Press ran pretty much the same story just a few days ago.  But you'd never know that from the Times, which seems to be pretending that the AP story never happened. 

I understand the instinct -- competition, insecurity -- and the long history of papers ordering up copycat stories but not acknowledging the reason why.  But this only works of you're sure your readers never read anyone else.  And that seems pretty unlikely in this day and age.