The NY Times seems to have a serious ongoing credibility problem. Just a couple of days ago they seriously mis-reported the investigation into the Clinton emails[1], and a couple of weeks ago they all but admitted that their Ellen Pao coverage was ideologically biased[2]. And that's just in the past couple of weeks!
"Second, contrary to the implication from the first Times story, Clinton’s emails sent in her role as secretary of state were automatically saved into a secure data system under the control of the department. In fact, where does the Times think the FOIA offices for the State Department and the intelligence community are finding the 55,000 emails now under review that it cites in its new story? Are officials breaking into Clinton’s house in the middle of the night to examine them by flashlight? Nope. They are pulling them off of the system under the department’s control."
The 55,000 emails were exported from the system by her staff, IIRC. I've never read another story that said that her emails were ever under the control of the State Department, which would of course make the email story completely insensible. If this is a false claim, Newsweek is just as confused as the NYT about Clinton's emails, if not more.
At some point the NYT and other media outlets decided the Clinton email story was about "classified emails" rather than an official conducting state business over their own private email. Newsweek is reducing it in this article to an insignificant technicality about FOIA. It's not about FOIA, it's about having a record of state business. FOIA is the only tool that the public has to force release of such records, but FOIA is not the reason we keep them. That's like saying that the reason you have a lock is so you have a place to use the key.
By making the story about the possible release of classified information, it just gives Clinton something that is easy to deny. I wouldn't be surprised if the Clinton team were intentionally steering the coverage in that direction, because when her denials of emailing classified information are proved true, the story will evaporate.
There needs to be an internet "law" about how all news reporting websites eventually tend towards populism and "fluff" (Ten X About Y That Will Shock|Terrify|Amaze You), rather than unbiased reporting, over time.
Edit: And maybe another law about how frequently they tend toward populism that ends up alienating the silent-majority of their audience setting up a feedback loop as they strive to even greater monetization despite a decreasing audience.
The funny/sad thing is that the NY Times basically admitted that's what they've become. In the Ellen Pao "Public Editor" column I linked to, the NY Times Public Editor herself said "I often hear from readers that they would prefer a straight, neutral treatment — just the facts. But The Times has moved away from that, reflecting editors’ reasonable belief that the basics can be found in many news outlets, every minute of the day."
Sweet zombie jesus. I can't believe they not only outright said that, but apparently think it's somehow a good thing.
The only thing the NYT has going for it is reliability. If it's their view that the facts can be had anywhere and what makes them special is the "added value" then they are almost outright admitting that they no longer have any reason to exits.
So can we safely say they are no longer "the newspaper of record"? That's one of the massive pillars that their reputation has been staked on for more than a century. I was just as flabbergasted as you when I read that line.
OMG. Thanks for calling attention to this. It's unbelievable.
Is there a chance that somehow The Onion has hijacked DNS for the Times and redirected it to a spoof site? Because that's how I read what the Public Editor said!
We're also treated to Orwellian Newspeak. When articles are written with an SJW slant it's not "opinion", but "analysis".
BTW at this moment there are 226 comments on that column on the Times website. People are outraged. Here are some excerpts from a few comments:
The color commentary disgused as "context and
analysis" is just awful—stop it! Just the facts,
please.
This is why the Times has diminishing
readership and crediblity.
I'm just boggled. Readers hammered you on the
factual inaccuracies, bias and agenda pushing
in that article. And that's your response?
My world is crumbling and there's nothing
I can do to stop it.
I've saved a copy of both the column and the comments. When I need a reminder of how bad traditional media has become, I'll reread them.
It's rather sad. I switched to the Washington Post after the Snowden debacle, when the NYT was hedging their reporting. I've found that the Post's journalism is vastly more serious. Then again, if i want to learn about fluff that doesn't matter, the NYT is still excellent.
It's a very strange dichotomy that $10 for a training or learning position is considered oppressive, but if it was unpaid (internship) or the trainee had to pay tuition for classes, it would be totally a non-issue.
The OP article is criticizing the claim from the original piece that this sort of ad is typical. (From original piece: "Asian-language newspapers are rife with classified ads listing manicurist jobs paying so little the daily wage can at first glance appear to be a typo.") If it's true that most ads list nothing, and that vast majority that do list wages list more than $70/day, then I'd say the original reporter is clearly being disingenuous.
Incidentally, here's the reporter saying that the OP article claimed the $10/day ad didn't exist:
> The ad that "doesn't exist" according to @R_Bernstein & @nybooks who calls me a liar & didn't bother to interview me
While that's better, it's still very bad. I cannot identify most of the characters. Someone fluent in the language would do better, but... I don't think text that can be read even if you're not fluent is a particularly extravagant requirement.
(as I read it, "part time and full time jobs (???) -- small work with (eyelashes? eyebrows?) $75, start after 3:00 -- apprentice (??) $10 -- QQ (??) 74857128 [editorial note: wow! that's a low number] -- telephone or wechat 347-952-5533")
But a lot of those characters come from my knowledge of what's likely to be said in the ad, not from my ability to recognize them in the image.
"licensed eyebrow plucker $75, start after 3:00, apprentice base pay $10"
Would you happen to know why this ad is in simplified characters (except the 拔) while the other one is in traditionals?
The $10 probably is per day; $10 / hour seems high for an untrained, unlicensed worker (and $75 / hour seems high for a licensed eyebrow plucker, too). On the other hand, the apprentice can apparently expect tips just like the licensed worker, if the reference to "base pay" is anything to go by.
The word "damning" seems a bit strong. "Qualifying" might be better.
The author, Richard Bernstein, concludes:
in extrapolating from the experience of Ms. Ren to make assertions about that “vast majority,” the paper has put its tremendous prestige and power behind a demonstrably misleading depiction of the nail salon business as a whole.
But what's his demonstrable evidence of institutional bias? As the upstanding "part owner of two day-spas in Manhattan", he's never seen anything like the practices described in the article? An equally broad extrapolation.
Even his investigation into the phantom $10 / day ad seems a bit disingenuous. He can't find an ad quoting that rate and it does seem odd that a salon would advertise such a low rate when it could just list no rate at all, which Brownstein concedes the majority of ads do. But he seems to misconstrue the article's quote that "the rate was confirmed by several workers" to suggest that the Times' reporter was using the workers to confirm that such ads were all over the place when the reporter intended instead to confirm that this was a common rate in the industry (regardless of the ad). If it turned out the ad couldn't be substantiated, but the practices described in the article were accurate, it'd be worthy of a correction. But not a retraction.
What we get with Richard Bernstein's article, one might hazard, is a "demonstrably misleading depiction" of the New York Times article from a motivated industry apologist that plugs its own anecdotes and loose figures into a narrative that seems to have its own populist agenda: the New York Times is not much better than HuffPo or Fox News when it comes to real journalism. Does that mean we should also give up on the New York Review of Books? I hope not.
> "the rate was confirmed by several workers" to suggest that the Times' reporter was using the workers to confirm that such ads were all over the place when the reporter intended instead to confirm that this was a common rate in the industry (regardless of the ad).
Actually, the NY Times isn't quite claiming that. They were just asking around to confirm that this particular ad was correct, and not a typo.
> @SarahMaslinNir confirmed w/ workers themselves was to make sure it was not a typo and a real wage.
> Ads in Chinese in both Sing Tao Daily and World Journal for NYC Nail Spa, a second-story salon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, advertised a starting wage of $10 a day. The rate was confirmed by several workers.
I'm pretty sure the Times has no evidence that this is anything like a typical wage.
This is the problem with reporting in general --it's full of half truths and poorly researched pieces. Many of these pieces are political one way or another.
They need better editors and fact checkers and other news organs, such as NPR or HuufPo or Fox, etc., which pick up the flame, should not pick up these stories and take them as self evident truths. They should at least do some rudimentary fact-checking if only as rudimentary as ECC. But no, then narratives would die.
Either they want to portray the struggle of the meek in the face of the oppressor. Or they want to forward an agenda. It's as if they want to be the hero or heroin. But at the same time they want to be known as having journalistic integrity and it seems this is just a mirage. It's all propaganda.
Sometimes I think they just want to provide catharsis for the upper middle class. Oh, we're better than those other middling people, we care. We truly feel sorry and truly want to bring better things to the disadvantaged --but it's all to lessen their own guilt.
There is nothing wrong with saying, a few nail salons are found to exploit a few new immigrants... But no, it has to be a widesweeping generalization, demonizing all nail operators --who can't retaliate against the machine that is the nyt.
I think someone has brought up the idea of a "genius" for these kinds of hitpieces where people with subject matter knowledge or expertise could comment.
There's a famous, and depressing, quote about newspapers by Micheal Crichton that fits here:
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
I think there is validity to that argument. Journalists are essentially writers --but writers with short deadlines, so they don't have time to research as normal writers might, in order to have a cursory understanding of what they are writing about and present it with understanding of the subject --be it astrophysics or social sciences.
In addition, most publications have political tendencies and aren't typically totally disinterested.
>This is the problem with reporting in general --it's full of half truths and poorly researched pieces
I largely agree with you, and it's very possible that the original nytimes article is questionable. But a lot of what you said ("poorly researched", "want to forward an agenda") can be said about this article too. Not even attempting to interview the subject of the article (I assume that's what happened based on this tweet: https://twitter.com/SarahMaslinNir/status/625085019199934464) is very poor journalistic standards.
Instead of getting caught in the middle of these two journalists, I'm going to wait for more, solid evidence.
Wow, damning takedown (from a former NYT journalist who happens to really know the industry).
There is one odd line, "Needless to say, it is not like The New York Times to get things so demonstrably wrong,"
It's just odd because Bernstein effectively makes Erika Allen seem like this decade's Jayson Blair. Makes the reader wonder if the NYT is a pressure cooker for this sort of fabulist.
This is now a second former NYT journalist that is also concerned about NYT's fact checking. Wonder if they were replaced by journalists with similar ethical standards.
Correction: Sorry, Sarah Nir is the journalist, not Allen.
The one ad is now being used to confirm:
"Asian-language newspapers are rife with classified ads listing manicurist jobs paying so little the daily wage can at first glance appear to be a typo."
The existence of one ad shows that Bernstein wasn't thorough in his search. But the image does not show that papers are rife with such ads.
Either way, though, Nir is writing about vulnerable undocumented immigrants, and Bernstein's describing how the industry works for people who play by the rules and only hire licensed workers.
Since they're talking about different parts of the industry, everything both side argues could be true. I'm reading the twitter exchange, it sounds like they're just shouting past each other.
On the reporter's twitter, it is claimed that the ad says $75/day for a worker with experience, and $10 for one without. However, you'd have to take their word for it, because despite saying very aggrieved things about how the ad Bernstein doubted DOES REALLY EXIST, and HERE'S A PICTURE OF IT... nobody has posted a picture with legible text.
I find it personally disturbing that so many people want to view that image as evidence of anything at all. :/
The character 學 ("study") is visible before an occurrence of $10 in the text, so it's reasonably likely that they're telling the truth about what it says. It's left as an exercise to say why paying your untrained interns $10 / day is so much worse for them than the conventional US practice of paying them nothing.
> How to account for these evident flaws, the one-sidedness of the Times story? Recently the Times’s own Nick Kristof wrote in a column that “one of our worst traits in journalism is that when we have a narrative in our minds, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it,” and, he might have added, consciously or not, ignore anecdotes and other information that doesn’t.
70$ per day is actually listed in the add assuming an 8 hour day that is 8.25 / hour in NYC. Assuming you could actually make minimum wage in most of the country you would be far better off. Which actually supports the idea that wage theft is rampant in the industry.
Further, like many cash businesses it's likely to attract many illegals which are generally highered at risk. For an industry already stuck at minimum wage across most of the country the only way that risk is worth it is if there making less than that.
PS: the other reason to use illegals is if the supply of workers is limited, but that would tend to push wages well above minimum wage. if the rules where actually inforced many nail bars would likely close, until reduced supply drove up either prices or utilization to support higher worker pay.
For tipped workers I thought minimum wage (at the time of the article) ranged from $4.90 to $5.65 in New York. The original Times author (if i remember right) claimed rampant tip-withholding, but you are claiming the ad itself demonstrates wage theft, and it doesn't mention tip withholding.
The author points out the part about illegals, and claimed that at key parts where it talked about workers as a whole, it drew from a sample of only unlicensed workers, which likely includes a larger proportion of illegals. He said the Times should have tried to estimate the size of this pool amongst the total work force.
Tips may count as part of pay, but they can't lower net hourly wages below minimum wages when including tips. As the quoted rates are minimum after tips the salon that's already factored into the calculation to reach 70$/Day.
PS: If you actually look at the picture you see two customers receiving work (back rub and nails) from multiple workers at the same time. Which means tips are going to be shared and likely to make up some of that 70$ minimum. Sure on a good day tip shares likely bump things past 70$ but per day each worker must always end up over 7.25 including tips.
The ad specifically calls it base pay and says "plus tips and comissions".
QUEENS AREA NAILS
Seeking several large and small work experienced hands.
Base pay $120 plus tips and commissions.
Small work $70, plus tips and commissions.
Seeking part-time small and large work on weekends.
15 minutes two-way transport Flushing to Elmhurst provided.
Responding to your edit: $70/8hr is already $8.75/hr, you did the math wrong.
Yes. Have you actually worked a job with tips and commissions? Some days they really end up at ZERO net tips over minimum wage.
PS: If the actual calculation where 70$ + f(X) instead of 70$ or f(X) the top opened would likely be far higher as random tips have a lot of a variation. With many waiters receiving at least one 100$ and a few 50$ tips over a few years. I know plenty of waiters that broke 250$ on a good night. But you see the same thing with raft guides, masuse, or bell hops.
As I already pointed out, you did the math wrong, 70/8=8.75, not 8.25. Now you are just trying to resort to whether or not I can personally relate through shared experience, instead of whether your numbers add up. I have worked in an untipped restaurant position near minimum wage but I didn't have to live on it at the time and so can't directly relate to anyone living on minimum wage or below (which doesn't include the people targeted in the ad since they would make above).
Untipped as in you always got a flat rate near minimum wage? That seems like a really bad deal.
As to the base pay argument, I have seen a lot of versions of this in sales, but almost always it's base pay of X or a commission structure with many people actually making the base pay for a while and then either being fired or moving on.
For the sake of argument we assuming the actual hours worked is only 8 and tips are frequent that might support 100$ as a minimum instead of average day. On the other hand if the average is 100$ and some days hit 150$ then you need several days @70$ to balanced out to 100$.
I accept both readings are reasonable based on wording, but even then 100$ per day in NYC at best supports minimum wage in the rest of the US.
They enter and remain the country illegally, thus they are illegal. Illegality stems from their physical presence in the country.
If you don't like the laws that restrict who can come and work in your country, you are welcome to elect representatives that will change them. That, however, is hard as other citizens of your country may want to prevent that from happening. That's democracy.
Walking around telling people that calling X an X is 'xenophobic' and should be stopped because it doesn't agree with you is wrong.
I disagree with both GP and the immigration laws affecting these people, but the term "illegals" to describe them strikes me as an innocuous shorthand for "people of illegal immigration status." It carries no implicit judgment of the people or the laws; it just states the relationship of the former to the latter.
This trend of casual libel against others, claiming intent and meaning that you can't possibly know, is worrying.
The shorthand is a politically-charged term that was designed to frame, for the listener, the target being described and to remove sympathy for them as a human. It's not libel when the person's words can be proven, nor to describe the utterance of said words. It's an opinion upon words that were said, thus not libelous.
Prior to the 1880's, the US used to be a nation that accepted the many who would become the hands that raised America to its place on the world stage. Somehow, the spawn of those earlier waves think that they are the reason the US is great and seek to limit entrance of the minds and labor of others who come seeking that old dream of meritocracy.
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
"Undocumented workforce" is just as slanted. Their problem is not lost paperwork. It obscures the lack of steady demand for their labor, and their willful defiance of our efforts to guard our home.
Prior to the late 1800s, we still had an untapped frontier, and immigration was in our interest. It was never a principle we committed to at all costs, despite what one poet might have thought. Now our own huddled masses are splitting a pie that isn't growing, and immigration is not so beneficial that it makes up for the overpopulation it causes (because few people have been emigrating).
The pie. The pie... about that pie. Recognizing immigrants increases the tax base. Recognizing immigrants ensures better wages and changes the entire narrative. Come, work, share in our bounty and our responsibility to each other.
Increase in population relate to increases in infrastructure, housing, services, global workforce competitiveness, military capabilities, and a myriad of other indirect and direct supporting features of societies that fare well historically. Do more with more instead of thinking you can always do more with less.
Increases in demand for food, services, schools, etc grows the pie. Sure, at some point, demand needs to be able to keep pace. But the US is not at that point.
It's easier to use the steamroller of global goodwill described by the statue poem than it is to simply sharpen the blades of dominance. Eventually, there's no metal left to sharpen and nations of billions will route a nation of millions.
>Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
You know that's just a poem on a statue, right, and not actually codified in law?
Hear, hear. If you paint with the broad stroke that a person who breaks a silly law in order to build a better life an illegal, then you should call just about anyone who breaks the other silly laws an illegal.
[1] http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-new-york-times-email...
[2] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/sunday-review/did-reddi...