"Just Kids" is the headline on a New York Times "T" magazine photo spread featuring a model on her back on a half-bare mattress on the floor. The text with the picture asserts that "virginal white lace paired with leather and suede evokes the sexy decadence..." The clothing on the model — a $7,900 Tom Ford jacket and $5,500 skirt, and a $1,725 Givenchy bodysuit — costs $15,125, which seems like a lot of money for "kids," even those attempting to evoke sexy decadence. The Times photo shoot seems to have involved not only a model, a photographer, and a stylist but also a hairdresser, a makeup artist, a manicurist, three photographer's assistants, a stylist's assistant, and a hair assistant, or a total of at least 11 people, all of whom are credited by name in the Times.
At a moment when the Times is trimming its news staff, the whole enterprise seems like an exercise in excess. And if, say, a Republican politician, a Wall Street bank, or a college fraternity were to devote these sorts of resources to producing elaborate photographs of "virginal," "sexy" "kids" splayed on half-bare mattresses, Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, and a passel of New York Times investigative journalists would be all over them with condemnatory coverage faster than you could remove a $1,725 Givenchy bodysuit. I understand, I suppose, the imperative to produce editorial content friendly to luxury fashion advertising that pays for the news in the rest of the paper. But at a certain point — at this point — one begins to wonder if there is any adult supervision.
 A screengrab from the New York Times web site: All the News Fit to Print? |
You'd think that given Times CEO Mark Thompson's experience leading the British Broadcasting Corp. through a child sexual abuse scandal, he'd maybe want to be a little more sensitive to, and less cavalier about, this sort of thing.