A front-page article in this morning's New York Times reports on Bill Clinton's explanation of his pardon for Marc Rich. "It was a Democrat, Jack Quinn, Mr. Clinton's former White House counsel, who served as Mr. Rich's conduit to the White House and is seen as the person who persuaded Mr. Clinton to pardon Mr. Rich," the Times reports.
The "is seen as" construction is a classic example of the Times slipping into the passive voice in a way that is less than helpful to the newspaper's readers. "Is seen" by whom? Who is doing the seeing? If it is the Times editors and reporters, why don't they just make bold and say it is Mr. Quinn "who persuaded Mr. Clinton to pardon Mr. Rich"? What's with the hedging? Why stick in the "is seen as"? Is it because the statement is unsubstantiated? After all, it could have been Prime Minister Ehud Barak or Denise Rich that did the persuading. The phrase "is seen as" is seen as pretty thin cover for the Times to drop its own views or suppositions into news articles.
'Andover Academy': A "Public Lives" profile of Clay Johnson in the national section of today's New York Times refers to "Andover Academy, the elite Massachusetts school." The formal name of the school is Phillips Academy. It is in Andover, Mass. and is informally known as Andover to distinguish it from Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H. But "Andover Academy" is not the idiom of those who attend it.
Akin Jordan: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on lobbyist Bill Paxon and his law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. The Times reports that Vernon E. Jordan Jr. "has left the firm for Wall Street." It is true that Mr. Jordan spends many days of the week in New York City working in finance. But according to the Akin Gump web site, Mr. Jordan is still "of counsel" to the Washington office of the law firm, suggesting that it is inaccurate to say that he "has left."
Free Pills: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times raises an alarm about the fact that the city's government-run hospitals will start charging $10 fees for prescription drugs. Exempt from the new fees, the New York Times reports as an aside, "are those in public programs for AIDS or prenatal care, those with tuberculosis, or teenagers who receive oral contraceptives." Whoa. It seems that in the world the Times editors inhabit, the fact that the city's taxpayers are footing the bill for distributing free oral contraceptives to teenagers is worthy of no further comment or explanation.
Speaking Cyrillic: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times describes a typewriter repair shop that is closing. "The remaining inventory includes keys for letters in languages including Farsi, Serbo-Croatian and Cyrillic," the Times reports. Cyrillic is not a language but an alphabet.
Max for the Minimum: The lead paragraph of an article in the arts section of this morning's New York Times describes the scene at a suburban mall, where "families were making final purchases at T.J. Max." The name of the store is T.J. Maxx, spelled like that.