The lead, front-page article in today's New York Times is about a poll conducted by the Times. The language of the poll questions and the news article are so slanted that they aren't particularly informative. For instance, the article asserts, "There is little support for some of the president's priorities, like drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and withholding money from public schools that perform poorly." This confuses Mr. Bush's priorities with his tactics. His priority is teaching children to read; it's quite possible that the president would be perfectly happy if all the government-run schools did that successfully and he didn't have to withhold money from any of them. One of the poll questions on education falls into a similar pattern: It asks "Should parents get tax-funded vouchers even if that means public schools would receive less money?" Thirty percent of respondents answered "yes" to that question. The truth is, though, that "public schools" would receive less money under a voucher system only if your definition of public school is a government-run school, rather than a school that is open to the public.
The Times article and the poll refer repeatedly to "the Democrats' proposed tax cut." This gives the "Democrats' plan" more credit than it deserves: There are nearly as many different Democratic tax plans as there are Democrats running around on Capitol Hill, and some Democrats have been arguing against any tax cut at all until a full budget is approved.
Finally, the two poll questions on missile defense are worded so they are unlikely to produce a true measure of support or opposition to building a defense. One question asked, "Do you favor the United States continuing to try to build a missile defense system in light of the fact that $60 billion has already been spent on it?" This is a question that measures Americans' attitudes toward sunk costs and writedowns more than Americans' attitudes toward missile defense. Another question asked, "Do you favor continuing to build such a system even if it means breaking the arms control treaty we now have with Russia?" This is a question that measures Americans' attitude toward breaking treaties more than Americans' attitude toward missile defense. If the question were, "Do you think a treaty Richard Nixon signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union should prevent America from today building a shield to protect us from attack by missiles from Iran, Iraq, North Korea or China?" the answer would likely be different.
Merger Motivation: A front-page article in today's New York Times about hospital mergers reports that "The goal of the mergers -- New York and Columbia-Presbyterian Hospitals; Beth Israel Medical Center with St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center; and Mount Sinai with New York University Medical Center -- was, of course, to save money." That's an oversimplification. The goal of these hospital mergers, as much as saving money, was to make more money by increasing market share and thus improving bargaining power with managed-care companies. The Times article gets into this eventually near the end, but it doesn't support the headline that the mergers are "stumbling," so it gets short shrift.
Late Again: The national section of today's New York Times carries an article under the headline "U.S. Attorney in New York Will Coordinate Inquiry on Pardons." The Los Angeles Times reported this yesterday, writing, "The decision by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, described by Justice Department officials as unprecedented in its scope, empowers U.S. Atty. Mary Jo White of New York to vastly broaden her office's review of three controversial cases to encompass all 177 pardons and commutations granted by Clinton on his last day in the White House." Today's New York Times article fails to credit the Los Angeles Times article. Worse, the New York Times fudges the matter, referring in its article with a March 13 dateline to "today's decision." If the decision was made March 13, how did the Los Angeles Times manage to report it in an article published March 13, complete with references to "the plan approved by Ashcroft"?
Can't Spell: An article in the "Workplace" section of today's New York Times about commuter romance refers to a woman named "Heidi Taff." A photo cutline alongside the article renders her last name as "Taft."