A headline in the national section of today's New York Times reports, "Hispanic Trails in Mayoral Poll in Los Angeles."
A brief in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on the Rev. Floyd Flake's endorsement of Alan Hevesi for mayor of New York and identifies Mr. Flake as "an influential figure among blacks."
Both are textbook examples of the Times' obsession with race and national origin and the newspaper's tendency to mention it -- in violation of its own style -- in cases where it is irrelevant, or where the relevance is not clear to readers.
In the case of the L.A. mayoral race, the article itself doesn't even mention the fact that the trailing candidate is Hispanic. The article doesn't mention the race or national origin of the leading candidate, either. There is some information about what polls indicate are the preferences of Hispanic voters. But does the Times really think the one word used to describe the former speaker of the California Assembly, in a headline, should be "Hispanic"? When the Times announced the accession of Howell Raines to the executive editorship, it's a wonder the paper didn't run the article under a headline that said, "White Named to Succeed Lelyveld as Times Editor."
As for the case of Rev. Flake, he is a former U.S. congressman from Queens, a top official of the Edison education company, and a regular contributor to the New York Post. The description that he is "an influential figure among blacks" may be true, but it vastly understates his influence. It's hard to see why the Times would focus on Rev. Flake's influence on blacks at the expense of his influence on anyone else, except perhaps to play into the questionable notion that blacks, like Jews or Hispanics, are somehow herd-like and susceptible to being influenced by leaders. Imagine if the Times story on Mr. Raines taking over from Mr. Lelyveld had described Mr. Lelyveld as being "an influential figure among Jews."
None of this is to suggest that the Times should flinch from discussing race or national origin or religion in articles in which it is clearly relevant. Or that the newspaper should do so in language that is anything less than direct. But both the trailing L.A. mayoral candidate and Rev. Flake -- not to mention the Times readers -- deserve better than the glancing, clumsy references in today's paper.
CBC: An obituary of Bernard Mendik in today's New York Times reports that over the years he was a trustee of the "Citizens Budget Committee." The group's correct name is the Citizens Budget Commission, not "Committee."