An article on the front of the arts section of today's New York Times reports on the controversy over lifted passages in the books of some historians. "There has been some criticism in print but mostly not too harsh," the Times reports. "Booksellers haven't stripped their shelves of these books, customers aren't demanding their money back, the authors' publisher seems more annoyed than angry, and no television producers or moviemakers are suggesting blackballing them."
An article in the "A" section of today's New York Times, about the same topic, tells a different story. "Writer Leaves 'NewsHour' in Furor Over Book," the headline over this article says. The article begins, "Under fire for inappropriately copying passages in a 1987 book, the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has taken a leave of absence from her role as a commentator on the 'Newshour With Jim Lehrer.' In addition, the University of Delaware has withdrawn an invitation to Ms. Goodwin to be the commencement speaker this year. The two moves indicate that her admissions of insufficiently acknowledged borrowed passages in one of her four books are casting a shadow over her reputation and career."
It's always nice for newspapers to include a variety of opinions, but in this case the descriptions of the facts at hand are so disparate that it is hard for a Times reader to make sense of what is going on. It would be nice if an arts editor had said to the arts columnist, "What do you mean no television producers are suggesting blackballing them? It says right here that the producers of the 'NewsHour With Jim Lehrer' are dropping her." Or if a news editor had said to the headline writer, "What do you mean 'furor'? It says right here that there has been some criticism in print but mostly not too harsh. Booksellers haven't stripped their shelves of these books, customers aren't demanding their money back, the authors' publisher seems more annoyed than angry, and no television producers or moviemakers are suggesting blackballing them."
Critics Would Say: The Times coverage of welfare reform reaches a new, unreformed low today in an article in the metro section. The article reports on a new computer program that seems designed to help maximize welfare dependency. The Times reports that the program "can also tell them if a $2-an-hour raise, for instance, will result in lower benefits. 'If an employer understands that giving a raise from $7.50 an hour to $9.50 an hour costs the worker her child care subsidy or food stamps, then instead of offering a raise, it might offer to pay for six months of computer training.'" (Wasn't that kind of perverse incentive supposed to have ended with the end of welfare as we know it?) The article quotes four people who like the software. One of them is the commissioner of the city's Human Resources Administration, Verna Eggleston. The Times reports, "Ms. Eggleston predicted that critics would say that the software will increase the costs of public support while government budgets are contracting." That's the point at which the Times hits a new low. The Times doesn't actually quote any critics -- it just quotes the advocate predicting what the critics will say. Imagine if the Times covered the Bush administration this way -- not quoting any Democratic critics of the administration, only quoting Bush White House officials predicting what critics would say. It's lazy and one-sided. And it smacks of a deal made in exchange for a day-ahead look at the software: we'll give you this story a day before the official announcement so long as you agree not to call any critics. Had the Times bothered to actually call up any critics rather than relying on Ms. Eggleston's portrayal of their arguments, it might have found that their main criticism would not be the cost but the message. Telling poor citizens that they should turn down a private-sector raise so that they can retain government food stamps and child-care subsidies sends a message that endorses welfare dependency. It's a shame that that the laws are set up so that a rational economic actor would prefer prolonged government dependency to a private-sector raise, but in a strictly economic sense, it doesn't matter to the poor person whether the income comes from a private employer or from the government. Software that demonstrates these perverse incentives may help the cause of those seeking to reform the welfare laws, but the claim in the Times news article that the software will help set the poor "on the road to self-sufficiency" is laughable. A critic -- had the Times bothered to call one -- would say that rather than setting the poor on the road to self-sufficiency, the program seems designed to encourage dependency.