The silence of The Times — about the growing corporate scandal that threatens a proposed partnership between the embattled Metro newspaper group and The New York Times Company — continues unabated, even as other media outlets on two continents continue to report the story.

So I asked Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent to clarify matters:

Dear Dan,

I am writing at the request of many of my readers to inquire as to why The Times has yet to report on the scandal that erupted last week when I reported here in my blog, as well as on our site MediaChannel.org, on Alternet.org, and many other places… a story that has since become front-page news in Boston, been picked up by numerous major metropolitan dailies that subscribe to the Associated Press, been reported on more than once by New York dailies, and lately crossed the Atlantic to appear in Le Monde, Financial Times and elsewhere.

The story involves the proposed NYT Company purchase of 49% of Boston Metro.

As I revealed — for a timeline, just read the past six posts on my blog from the bottom up — Metro has a corporate culture of crude racism and sexism. Two officials resigned in the wake of my reporting; Metro took numerous other corrective measures; the Boston Herald now reports that one of its corporate parents distributes pornography, etc — there would seem to be some news “fit to print” in this pile of malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance. Yet The Times remains silent, both when asked (via Catherine Mathis) about the scandal, and, more surprisingly, in its pages.

Conspiracy-minded readers in the blogosphere suspect some editorial mandate not to touch this story for corporate/financial reasons. Can you set them straight, please? Why hasn’t The Times mentioned any of this, when hundreds of other papers literally over the world already have?

Okrent is traveling, but his assistant emailed back that the matter will soon be brought to the Public Editor’s attention soon.

Okrent aside, The Times Company continues to stonewall, despite the continuing allegations and revelations. Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis says The Times does not “have responsibility for the other business activities of Metro International, its investors or other business partners.”

And Metro head Pelle Törnberg, in crisis meetings in Manhattan all last week reassuring Times executives, remains equally untroubled, calling the Metro-racism story “reheated,” and claiming that Metro has ” no reason — after our contacts with The New York Times — to believe that the deal will not go ahead.”

Yet further disturbing reports about the racist and sexist cancer apparently at the heart of the Metro newspaper group continue to pour in, both from the United States and abroad.

Here’s a sample of what I’m now hearing on a daily basis from employees of the troubled chain of free ‘youth-oriented’ papers:

Please help! I am a black employee at Metro and really appreciate your efforts to end the systematic racism at this company, Metro. I am too afraid for my job to come forward!

The people that run this company are part of an all white ‘boys network’ that has Johan Hansson, (Regional Director of Metro North America) at its center. He has been coming around lately to minority employees pretending to be concerned but it is a farce. For months, Johan Hansson has ignored complaints about the racist and sexist comments made by his good ole boys, especially the Philadelphia Ad Director (Ed Abrams) and Philadelphia Marketing Director (Phil Anderson). Johan Hansson works very closely with Steve Nylund, who made the racist comments at the Metro conference.

Johan’s ‘old boys club’ loves to joke about cheating on their wives, and the Marketing Director, Phil Anderson, talks about “Why it’s so good to bed a Negress” (exact quote). He regularly demeans black people and sexually harasses female staff members.

Again, Johan Hansson knows about all of this — I have proof (including emails) to document the fact that many people have told him about this institutionalized racism. He does nothing but protect them.

Please help change this! The recent changes Metro has made are deceptive as they are only on the surface and clearly done to appease advertisers and The NY Times. There is a rotting core of racism here at the company and, until that is released, blacks and other minorities at Metro will continue to be treated like dogs!

Neither Johan Hansson nor Ed Abrams were available for comment. But Marketing Director Phil Anderson was, and he offered an “unqualified denial” of the charges, adding, “I have never bedded a ‘Negress’ and I do not condone or accept the kind of behavior referred to above in the workplace.”

Finally — for now — Franck Theeten, a reader in Belgium who learned of the controversy by reading an article in “Le Monde,” emailed about “a recent case of racism linked with Metro” that occurred in Belgium last fall.

“The newspaper displayed on a double-page a big advertisement for a vacuum-cleaner firm (Hoover),” notes Theeten. “The ad . . . showed religious symbols (from Christian, but also Jewish and Muslim religions), in a manner . . . which may carry racist insinuations.”

The ad ‘insinuated’ a comparison of ethnic minorities to insects, Theeten reports, “Which was a classic rhetorical process in French far-right press, especially in an anti-Semitic manner during the Dreyfus Affair.”

In conclusion, Theeten writes, “I fully support the views and fears that you expressed in your website about the implantation of this newspaper in the United States.”

French-speaking readers can read more at http://www.dialogue-partage.org.