Religion and rural US, the two constituencies that America's most respected newspaper The New York Times gives a wide berth to, will find more coverage in the paper as part of a new blueprint.

When the country's most liberal newspaper says it is refurbishing its content to include religion and rural America, the two constituencies that are inextricably linked, it is a clear sign of the changing times.

As the hold of the Christian right has grown on America's polity, that mood has been reflected in the media as well. Newspapers and television channels are compelled to include religion and rural America more than before - from both the circulation and ratings standpoints.

The paper has just come out with a 16-page report by an internal committee of 19, including editors, reporters, a copy editor and a photographer.

"In part because the Times' editorial page is clearly liberal, the news pages do need to make more effort not to seem monolithic. We should seek talented journalists who happen to have military experience, who know rural America first hand, who are at home in different faiths," the report says.

Political interests representing Middle America have frequently lambasted the Times as too liberal and cut-off from ground realities.

The Times blueprint comes even as a recent study by Pew Research Centre showed that 45 percent of Americans have little or no faith in newspapers. In terms of specific newspapers, The Times was rated as average in the survey.

The newspaper, which has the reputation of setting the agenda for the nation, has since 2003 suffered because of a scandal involving Jayson Blair, once a rising star among journalists, who turned out to have fabricated or plagiarised quotes in his reports. The paper published all his stories without much questioning although more often than not he picked up information from other newspapers without ever visiting actual cities or towns whose datelines he used.

Among other things the blueprint limits the number of quotes that can be carried without their sources being identified.

Times Editor Bill Keller was quoted as welcoming the recommendations as "a sound blueprint for the next stage of our campaign to secure our accuracy, fairness and accountability".

The report said, "Our news coverage needs to embrace unorthodox views and contrarian opinions, and to portray lives both more radical and more conservative than those most of us experience. We need to listen carefully to colleagues who are at home in realms that are not familiar to most of us."

Meanwhile, respected current affairs website Salon.com reported that conservative Republicans have launched a "heavy-handed" campaign to correct "the liberal slant" of public broadcasters PBS.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees PBS affairs, recently brought in two shows with clear conservative philosophy. "Tucker Carlson Unfiltered" hosted by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and "The Journal Editorial Board" hosted by the editors of the pro-George W. Bush Wall Street Journal were brought on for what many commentators believed was an attempt to correct the balance.