The New York (NY) Times has been called the “paper of record.” When politicians wanted information to be seen, they “leaked” the information to the Times. WikiLeaks (launched in 2006) serves a similar function.
 
Canadian-born American stand-up comedian and social satirist Mort Sahl wrote in “My Favorite Jokes in Parade magazine on February 26, 1961:
   
“I HEARD AN interesting definition of the New York Times. A friend of mine calls it—the official leak of the State Department.”
   
   
Wikipedia: Mort Sahl
Morton Lyon Sahl is a Canadian-born American stand-up comedian, actor and social satirist, considered the first modern stand-up comedian since Will Rogers. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire which pokes fun at political and current event topics using improvised monologues and only a newspaper as a prop.
 
Wikipedia: The New York Times
The New York Times (sometimes abbreviated as the NYT and NYTimes) is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 127 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The Times is ranked 17th in the world by circulation and 2nd in the U.S.
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Nicknamed “The Gray Lady”, the Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record”.
 
25 April 1951, Pittsburgh (PA) Sun-Telegraph, “Political Parade” by George Rothwell Brown, pg. 22, col. 5:
THE Washington correspondent of the Times who wrote the Wake Island story, said in the main news section of the paper on Sunday, April 22, that he had gained access to documented administration sources “entirely on his own initiative.”
   
Twice elsewhere in the same edition of the newspaper however the New York Times admitted the official “leak” to that paper.
 
26 February 1961, Boston (MA) Sunday Globe, “My Favorite Jokes” by Mort Sahl, Parade magazine, pg. 31, col. 2:
I HEARD AN interesting definition of the New York Times. A friend of mine calls it—the official leak of the State Department.
     
21 October 1962, The Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, NC), “Robinson’s Ramblings: ABC’s of Wit, Sarcasm” by Mike Robinson, pg. 2, col. 5:
NEW YORK TIMES: The official leak of the State Department.
   
1 July 1984, The Seattle Times/Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA), “It’s a Mad World” by Stanley Kramer, pg. A22, col. 1:
Somebody once said that news works in leaks—and government is the only vessel that leaks from the top. The New York Times is the official leak of the State Department.
(“Governments are the only vessels that leak from the top” was said by New York Times writer James Reston in 1946 and 1951.—ed.)
   
17 August 1987, The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), “Too many leaks in ship of state” (editorial), pg. B4, col. 1:
The New York Times is the official leak of the State Department.
—Mort Sahl.
 
Google Groups: alt.anarchism
Invidividualist Anarchism and society
Ron Allen
7/17/01
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“The New York Times is the official leak of the State Department.”
—Mort Sahl