The most clueless sentence this month

Perusing Emma Gray's LA Confidential missive on Artnet yesterday, I ran across this passage:

Precursors to Khan's themes of digital identity are explored at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in a show titled "Identity Theft," May 19-Aug. 11, 2007, which is organized by art journalist Jori Finkel, who freelances for the New York Times, among other outlets. A reporter who time and again manages to trump the Los Angeles Times in its own backyard...

Say what? Nothing aginst Finkel -- I'm friendly with her and this piece in particular is plenty interesting -- but what on earth is Gray talking about -- and how did this line get published? Finkel hasn't 'trumped' the LAT on anything. (Which is not a criticism of Finkel -- that's not her job.)

(In a related story, I'm disappointed in Artnet lately. This Charlie Finch piece on the apparent double suicide of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake is pathetically Finch-centric.)

This is worth mentioning for two reasons: It perpetuates the myth that the NYT's arts coverage is something great. As I've noted here for years: It's not. Sometimes it's good: the byline "Roberta Smith is the best tip-off that quality will follow. Often it's clueless. (It bows at the feet of NYC institutions, is riddled with errors, only acknowledges that West-of-the-Hudson America exists when it has to sell ads for its museums advertorials, thinks that Anthony Caro has arrived only when he has a show in Chelsea, and I could keep going.)

(In another related story: A journalist quoting an artist's dealer fawning about the artist's work is exactly the same thing as a journalist quoting a used car salesman talking about the glories of a 1987 Peugeot that he just happens to have available for the low, low price of $1,295. As lazy as Vogel's Mitchell-Innes quote is, this is the all-time classic of the genre.)

But mostly I'm amazed by Gray's timing. Her strange phrase comes after this thoroughly discredited story about the Hammer, a piece made more incorrect by its remarkably bad headline. That the Hammer got the NYT to buy into any of its Codex-related blather (any editors there? hello?) speaks to how bamboozle-able the NYT is.