A story in the Weekend section of today's New York Times reports on the contemporary art scene in Brooklyn. "Getting to Williamsburg is a cinch: one stop on the L train out of Manhattan to Bedford Avenue," the Times reports.
This is a great example of the assumptions the Times makes about its readers. Clearly, this sentence or article isn't edited for readers who already live in Williamsburg and don't need to take the L to get there. It isn't edited for readers in the Westchester, Long Island or New Jersey suburbs, for whom the L train from Manhattan probably wouldn't be the best way of getting to Williamsburg, and for whom the trip might not be such a "cinch." It isn't edited for readers who rely on a car and driver or on an armored motorcade with motorcycle outriders and boats in the water to get them around the New York metropolitan area, and who wouldn't be caught dead on the L train unless all the chauffeurs had the day off.
Hastert Complains: Speaker Hastert issued a press release today complaining that the Times front-page story today mischaracterized his comments about a tax cut. "Despite inaccurate news accounts in the New York Times and the Washington Post, I support across-the-board tax relief because I believe it is one of fairest ways to cut taxes. I also believe that across-the-board tax relief may help the economy avoid a recession," the speaker said.
Health Care Economics: The New York Times today prints on the front page, above the fold, an article reporting that "Millions of American women who have been paying for birth-control pills out of their own pockets may have a claim for insurance coverage, under a ruling by the Equal Opportunity Commission." The story seems totally oblivious to health care economics, or to economics, period. You can't get something for nothing, even if the Equal Opportunity Commission orders it. If the government forces insurance companies to cover birth control pills, the insurance companies will pass the costs on to businesses in the form of increased premiums. And the businesses will either stop offering the insurance or pass the premium increases along to workers in the form of reduced wages or to their own customers in the form of increased prices. A reader has to wade all the way to nearly the end of the Times story to find quotes from spokesmen from the Health Insurance Association of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce making these points. But it would have made just as much sense to refer to these consequences in the first sentence of the story, rather than, as the Times did, emphasizing only the supposed beneficial effect of the ruling on "Millions of American women." The article might just as well have begun, "Millions of Americans will get smaller raises next year" or "Millions more Americans will find themselves without health insurance next year."
Dan 'Coates': What is it with the New York Times that it can't spell names correctly? A story in today's Times about the Bush cabinet reports that "former Senator Dan Coates of Indiana has been considered the leading candidate for secretary of defense." The correct spelling is Coats, without an "e."