I have always had a rocky relationship with the New York Times. The fact that its mostly about New York (what the fuck?) bothers me to an unreasonable degree, but what really pisses me off is when the authors/editors demonstrate how oblivious they are to the plight of almost everyone in America.
Take today’s bogus-trend piece written by Catherine Rampell, who grew up in “the New York Part” of South Florida and then got her street smarts at Princeton. According to Ms. Rampell’s stunningly thorough review of one survey, several anecdotes, and data about rising application rates for temporary service positions, she has concluded that more college graduates are taking public service jobs than they had in the past. Of course, this claim leaves one glaring question unanswered: are there more public service jobs to be had?
I am trying on a suit because this article is about jobs! Its a metaphor!
The only answer provided by the article is the unsourced claim that the federal government payroll has increased by 3% since the recession began, whenever that was. But federal government jobs are not necessarily public service positions, and are not necessarily permanent. Does this figure reflect the massive hirings (and firings) of census workers? Does it reflect increases in particular programs? Did it come from a Fox News rant about big government? The core question raised by her very thesis goes totally uninvestigated.
The fact that Ms. Rampell has no evidence to support her argument is made clear by her use of unrelated data to try to shore up her claims. Applications for TFA and Americorps are way up! Therefore, more people are being selected for TFA and Americorps! Oh, wait… that’s like saying that more people are applying to Princeton, so now Princeton has more students. See what I did there? I mentioned her alma mater again, as a way of helping her understand the flaw in her logic.
At this point you’re wondering, why is he being so gratuitously mean? So she wasn’t very careful in researching her piece, cut her some slack! Let me share with you a few tidbits of wisdom that she imparts to the reader, which may shed light on my infuriation.
“The absence of traditional private sector jobs forced many of the country’s best and brightest into lower-paying, if psychically rewarding, work.” Wow, that sounds like it really sucks. I bet those lower-paid people who got forced into public service jobs are pretty bummed about it. But what happened to your data about how extremely competitive these positions are? Your anecdotes show that the people who are working in public service are happy about it, so who exactly got “forced”?
“It is easier to be idealistic and relatively unconcerned about wages when workers are young, childless and mortgage-free; attitudes toward the importance of financial remuneration can change when responsibilities add up.” Says who? At least attribute your editorializing to a source instead of just declaring these maxims as if they are true.
Actually, jotting down those words of wisdom without bothering to find a reputable source to lend them any weight is pretty tempting. Let me try writing one: Opinions about the long-term viability of public service work can be valuable, when they come from people with expertise; reporters who are out of touch with everyone but the grads of super-elite colleges don’t have useful wisdom to offer.
While I’m at it, here’s a pitch for an article: Recession forces New York Times to write about the plight of a population other than privileged college graduates. You’re going to have to fake the data and rely heavily on anecdote to write that one too; I don’t think its going to come true.
I think you’re totally right about the flaw in the reporter’s logic.
But I’ve always loved that the New York Times is mostly about New York. I like reading a newspaper that takes the latest developments in fashion as seriously as a world-historical revolution in the middle east, that unapologetically presumes its readers will be familiar with the physical and social geography of New York, whose only use for most of the rest of the country is as a “36 hours in:” weekend destination for uber-rich couples looking to spend over $400 on a hotel room, and that publishes little pictures of newlyweds next to blurbs about how they met on the green lawns of their Ivy Leauge college, or at the wedding of their friends in a leafy enclave of Connecticut, or at a bar in the city, where the groom is an investment banker and the bride is a staff attorney at the alliance to show deaf children modern art.
I guess it just makes me happy to think that somewhere in this hard world, the happy New York of the New York Times exists. Is it so wrong to want to read the daily chronicle of the fortunate/intellectual/engaged?
Maybe the problem is that the New York Times feels the need to both be about New York and also the newspaper of record for the entire nation. That leads to unfortunate articles like this one, where a reporter halfheartedly attempts to graft a national angle onto a story that wants to be about a trend in what the coolest jobs are perceived to be among narrow subculture of elitist manhattanites.
Because I think maybe you’ve been a little too hard on the young Ms. Rampell. Her latest article is (1) dope and (2) almost reads as self-parody of the casual conflation of the anecdotal and the statistical you complained of in her other article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/weekinreview/06happy.html?ref=catherinerampell.
Tyler, there are no words for my admiration of your wise perspective. Your ability to see the worst things about the NYTimes as strengths will take you far in life; perhaps it is that worldview that will someday lead to your being featured in the NYTimes as the second-coming of the Happiest Man in America.
Tyler McNish, a 69 year-old judge who rides his bike to court and converted to judaism for the purposes of this article, is now the happiest man in america. In addition to having achieved the highest honors in his chosen profession, Mr. McNish lives on Maui, and surfs in the morning before work. When reached for comment, he responded “the secret to my happiness is that I take 36 hour vacations to various mainland cities. These refreshing jaunts recommended by the Times make great reminders that I live in the best place ever. Seriously, this is a practical joke, right?”