When it comes to basic science, my impression is that the New York Times is a rather staid publication. It will generally hew to the scientific majority opinion and avoid getting too far into reporting on scientifically controversial topics such as LENR. To air unconventional views, it will probably use its Op/Ed pages to allow unaffiliated individuals to do this, provided the views are not too far from the mainstream.
So what might it look like for the editors at such a publication to start to warm to the idea of LENR? In today's Sunday Review, David Leonhardt, one of my favorite economics writers, writes about green technology and climate change: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/sunday-review/a-ray-of-hope-on-climate-change.html In the article he makes a case for government funding of basic research, quoting someone who says that the best hope for addressing climate change in light of today's political realities is for the arrival of a disruptive technology, such as the Internet or fax machine, which will then take off. Leonhardt closes the article with this: "the weather has made the climate harder to ignore. And when you look closer, there are some reasons for hope — tentative, but full of potential — hiding beneath the surface." One wonders whether Leonhardt has LENR in mind. Maybe he does, or maybe he doesn't. But it's an interesting question to ask. Eric
