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.
