The NYT is in a tough spot on this just like Spirit Cooking.
They can tell the red county working stiff morons in flyover country that they are just too dimwitted to understand true art. “Oh, you thought the Satanic symbols, fake blood, and cannibalism was for real? How droll. It’s just art.”
Now with the Comet Pizza bit their explanation is: “Conspiracy, loons, see how you need your betters to police the net for you or you children in flyover country will kill each other with your Trump-voting stupidity.”
They are denying the story because they know there’s a heck of a lot of smoke there and want to discredit it before it grows larger.
You also have to consider how news stories are used these days. It’s not just the print edition - which nobody reads but those over 60.
They use the news stories as Snopes-style leftist talking point ‘debunking’ pieces.
They want the FIRST thing the flyover country folks see when using Google to search “pizzagate” to be this story.
LOOK NO FURTHER — don’t look at the man behind the curtain, so to speak.
Just read our article and it’ll tell you the “real news.”
Btw, that ‘fake news’ stuff was audience tested, focus group approved - just like they did with Islamophobia.’
They want to get the American public back on the MSM plantation. “WE tell you the truth and how to think, you rubes. You shut up and listen and believe how we want and vote how we want.”