Trying to look around, it's actually pretty difficult to support or disprove this retroactively. For one, NYT's archive is kind of behind a paywall. My searches only net me some NYT blog entries usually not related to anything of relevance.
Secondly, even if I were to find an article that is related to some piece of legislation, it would only be speculative and wouldn't prove that it is a "hit piece" in support for or against it.
Thirdly, off the top of my head, I can only think of a few things: SOPA from January 2012, Patriot Act (as mentioned earlier), the iPhone/FBI encryption fiasco (which did not result in any legislation yet, afaik), Net Neutrality, and Snowden/Wikileaks stuff (again, did not result in legislation afaik).
More examples are always welcome, but as I said, it is really tricky to speculate on the existence of a conspiracy based on a few articles and some hindsight - you really open yourself to confirmation bias, subconsciously. And for the record, I'd love to prove this is true.
You're missing the obvious point, which is that anything to do with federal legislation is likely already a newsworthy topic, moreso because of pending legislation to address it. Finding NYT stories preceding legislation passing is almost a perfect example of correlation not equalling causation. Even a consistent pattern of (NYT story, legislation passes) demonstrates nothing about whether the NYT story is a planted bit of propaganda to ease passage of the bill.
I believe the original assertion is that there is a non-obvious connection between a newsworthy article and a piece of legislation, and that the article is planted to sway public/congress opinion a certain way.
As I said, this kind of thing is extremely difficult to prove without a smoking gun (e.g. an email from the head of state to the head of NYT instructing them what to publish, when or why). And, as both you and I agree, it is impossible to prove without equating correlation/causation or having confirmation bias in retrospect.
Secondly, even if I were to find an article that is related to some piece of legislation, it would only be speculative and wouldn't prove that it is a "hit piece" in support for or against it.
Thirdly, off the top of my head, I can only think of a few things: SOPA from January 2012, Patriot Act (as mentioned earlier), the iPhone/FBI encryption fiasco (which did not result in any legislation yet, afaik), Net Neutrality, and Snowden/Wikileaks stuff (again, did not result in legislation afaik).
More examples are always welcome, but as I said, it is really tricky to speculate on the existence of a conspiracy based on a few articles and some hindsight - you really open yourself to confirmation bias, subconsciously. And for the record, I'd love to prove this is true.