"The Times claims..."

I noticed something while watching the News Channel's two paper reviews last night (which can be seen here and here). 

During Martine Croxall's opening run-through of the front pages, she would use various forms of words to introduce each newspaper's front page - e.g. "The Guardian has...", "The Mirror also leads on...", "The Mail has...", "The Express forecasts...", etc. 

Intriguingly - and uniquely - the lead story in today's The Times was introduced, during both paper reviews, with the following form of words:

The Times claims...

Oddly enough, exactly the same happened on this morning's Today programme. During the second (6.40) paper review - the only time the Times lead story was mentioned - James Naughtie departed from his (and Sarah Montague's) previous forms of words (e.g. "The Mirror expects...", "The Star tells its readers...", "A headline in the Mail says...", "The Mirror says...", "The Guardian takes the same line...", "The Sun argues...") to introduce the Times story in this way:

The Times claims...

Two presenters on different programmes, both using (on three occasions in total) the same form of words to introduce just one news story from the newspapers. 

The main story in question was this one from the Times's legal editor, Frances Gibb:

Britain is seeing a surge in Sharia marriages — many of them polygamous — as young Muslims shun legally binding unions. 

As many as 100,000 couples are living in such marriages, which are not valid under UK law, and bypassing register offices, experts said. Ministers have raised fears that women can be left without the right to a fair share of assets if the relationship ends, while others are forced to return to abusive “husbands”. 

A leading Islamic family lawyer warned that the increase in Sharia ceremonies among the 2.7 million-strong Muslim population in Britain was also behind a growth in “secret polygamy”.

Another curious thing about last night's The Papers on the News Channel is that though most of the front page stories were covered in some detail (over several minutes), the only time this Times story was covered (during the second paper review), Martine Croxall introduced it with the following words:

Let's move onto The Times - and, very quickly if we can, look at a couple of these next two stories [the other was a Telegraph front page story about "migrants" taking British jobs]...

Less than a minute was spent on it.

The Today programme didn't devote a discussion or report to it either.

All of this suggests to me a certain reluctance to cover and give credence to what on the face of it looks like a serious piece of reporting from The Times. 

Is the BBC downplaying another potential scandal-in-the-making in the interests of social cohesion again?