As part of its continuing crusade for higher taxes, the New York Times reports on today's front page on the situation in Tennessee. "Two weeks ago, after yielding to large crowds at the Capitol here protesting a proposed income tax, legislators could balance the budget only by spending all the state's remaining $560 million share of the national settlement with the tobacco industry; most other states are using their settlement windfalls for health purposes and preventing tobacco use."
Well, that claim that "most other states are using their settlement windfalls for health purposes and preventing tobacco use," while it supports the Times campaign for higher taxes, is on precarious ground when it comes to the facts. Here's the New York Times's own headline from August 11, 2001: "Tiny Part of Settlement Money Is Spent on Tobacco Control." That August 11, 2001, article went on to report that "politics and a slowing economy have trumped promises to fight smoking, leading many states to use the money for other needs, like public schools, elderly care and balancing the budget." The August 11, 2001, article reported that "A new report by the National Conference of State Legislatures found that the 46 states that joined in the settlement, plus the four that reached separate deals with the tobacco companies -- Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi and Texas -- have used 5 percent of the money so far for smoking prevention and cessation programs. In June, a similar undertaking by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that states were using 'about 7 percent' of the settlement money for new or expanded tobacco programs."
Repeating the Error: A photo cutline in the Arts section of today's New York Times says, "A suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv disco left 18 people dead on June 1." Here's a correction that ran in the New York Times on August 1, 2001: "Because of an editing error, a picture caption last Thursday with an article about the elusiveness of peace in the Middle East misstated the number of people killed by a suicide bomber at a Tel Aviv discotheque and misstated the date. The bombing occurred on June 1, not 2, and killed 21, not 18." The Times is to be congratulated for getting the date of the bombing right this time around, but the newspaper still seems to be having a little trouble getting an accurate count of the number of deaths. One reason, of course, is probably that the death toll rose after the initial reports of the bombing. Still, you'd think that after having already run one correction on this point this month, the Times would at least attempt to refrain from repeating the error.