A "Public Lives" profile in the national section of today's New York Times reports on Howard Mechanic, a Vietnam War protester who became a fugitive and was pardoned by President Clinton. The Times says Mechanic's "return to good standing" has been "anything but controversial." The profile is a whitewash of Mechanic's record. It omits his more colorful statements, like, "The law, courts and pigs protect the propertied interests." It omits the fact by appearing at the antiwar protest where he was arrested, Mechanic violated a court order that specifically named him and enjoined him from protesting. It omits the fact that by becoming a fugitive he left in the lurch a professor who had pledged his home as collateral for Mechanic's bail. It omits the fact that, running for city council in Scottsdale, Arizona, he lied about what college he went to and then, when he was about to be found out, lied by telling voters he had leukemia and was withdrawing from the race.
You don't have to be a Cold War hawk like Smartertimes.com is to think these facts are relevant; even the New York Times magazine included them in a profile of Mechanic that it ran on April 30, 2000. Granted, the space allotted for this morning's article is much shorter than that allotted to the magazine article. But it doesn't take much space to get across the idea that Mechanic's case is more complex than today's Times whitewash suggests it is. Do the Times editors think the paper's readers have such short memories that they can slip this kind of thing in and have no one remember the earlier magazine article?
Supply and Demand: More evidence that the New York Times does not understand economics comes in an article in the metro section of today's paper. The article runs under the headline "Ticket Price for a Movie Goes to $10 at Loews," and the article reports "The movie theater business has been deeply troubled as a result of a building spree led to a vast oversupply of theaters." Never mind the missing word; there is also a pullout quote in the article that says, "A business suffering from a vast oversupply of theaters." The way supply and demand curves work, according to the New York Times, apparently, is that when there is an oversupply of something, the price goes up. This is in defiance of conventional economics, but the Times has never been bound by the strictures of conventional economics.
Smartertimes.com doesn't deny that there is a glut of movie theater seats nationwide. But the key factor affecting the price of a movie ticket in Manhattan is not the supply of movie theater seats nationwide, but the supply of movie theater seats in Manhattan. And despite the addition of new megaplexes at Times Square and at Kips Bay, the fact remains that buying tickets way ahead of time is the only way to get in to see a popular new release on a weekend night, or even a Thursday night, at theaters in the Village or the Upper West Side. Show up on a weekend night there without having bought tickets in advance, and it is obvious that "vast oversupply" is not the relevant business problem being faced. (Never mind the relevant social problem being faced of what to do for the rest of the evening given that the movie you wanted to see was sold out.) In fact, the demand for tickets at the current price exceeds the supply. Which is why the ticket prices can be raised.
Aptitude Test: An article in the national section of today's New York Times about testing and college admissions describes the SAT I as "an aptitude test." Even the sellers of the SAT have stopped claiming it is an aptitude test; while SAT once stood for Scholastic Aptitude Test, the name of the test was changed about a decade ago to Scholastic Assessment Test, and now it is just called SAT I. The same paragraph that identifies the test as an aptitude test reports that officials say the scores are linked to school quality. So why describe the test as an aptitude test if it is not?