Another One Bites The Dust: After 15 Years, NYT Magazine Quietly Kills "Lives" Back-Page Feature.

After 15 years, the NYT Magazine has quietly killed yet another of its most enduring and popular features -- this time, the back-page "Lives" column.

For the last two weeks -- the second and third issues since the magazine re-launched under new editor Hugo Lindgren -- the backpage feature has been named "Read More." Last week's feature was a 395-word profile of the director of the 1971 movie, "Pink Narcissus," and this week chronicles (in 487 words) the life story of LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy.

The NYT Magazine -- under the leadership of then-editorial director Adam Moss, now editor of New York Magazine -- launched the "Lives" column on January 28, 1996, with an essay by writer Louise Rafkin about her laundry.

There followed more than 500 columns written by the famous (Shana Alexander and Steve Martin contributed in the first year), unknown, and even anonymous -- almost always recounting a small, well-told personal tale. The column grew out of the NYT Magazine's annual "Lives Well Lived" issue that offered short reminiscences of that year's notable deaths.

Lindgren -- who served under Moss at both the NYT Magazine and New York -- has been busy dismantling much of Moss's architecture in recent weeks.

Among Lindgren's moves: he replaced both Randy Cohen (The Ethicist) and Deborah Solomon ("Questions For..."), both popular columnists, and killed Virginia Heffernan's "Medium" column. Perhaps his most controversial decision to date was ending the "On Language" column after 32 years -- most of them written by legendary language expert William Safire.

Lindgren has hired a new Ethicist and "Questions For..." columnist, and launched several new features, among them a regular column by his boss, executive editor Bill Keller, and columns with labels like "You Are Here," "Look," "Riff" and "What They Were Thinking."

The loss of "Lives" will have far-reaching effects among writers, especially those who saw the column as a means to break into the NYT Magazine. In it early years, the column featured the NYT debuts of such future bestselling authors as Elizabeth Gilbert (writing about her childhood home), Mary Roach (on her elderly father) and novelist Colum McCann (on a visit to a Russian cemetery).

In the first issue of Lindgren's re-design, the "Lives" column adapted a piece first published online at Reddit -- liberally editing the language in ways that diminished the writer's original voice, as we noted at the time.

That, as it turned out, would be the column's farewell entry.

UPDATE: Does "Lives" still live? We emailed Lindgren before posting our item and he failed to respond. But a NYTPicker reader wrote to a NYT Magazine editor named John Glassie, and got this reply.

The email suggests that instead of killing "Lives," Lindgren has simply demoted it to occasional status, depending on the supply of 400-word profiles in the bank. Smooth move, Hugo!

HuffPo's Peter S. Goodman: "I Don't Get Why" NYT's Bill Keller Misrepresented Comments In Sunday Magazine Column.

In an email reponse to questions from The NYTPicker, former NYT economics writer Peter S. Goodman has questioned NYT executive editor Bill Keller's motives in mangling a quote from a recent column in the Huffington Post.

In today's NYT Magazine, Keller writes about the need for accuracy in news coverage -- but in doing so the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist innacurately quoted from a February 10 HuffPo column by Goodman.

Halfway through the column, Keller defends the NYT newsroom staff against an attack on the paper's approach to impartiality, by an unidentified critic:

My little realm, the newsroom, consists of about 1,100 people. Every one of them has opinions about a lot of things. But just as doctors and lawyers, teachers and military officers, judges and the police are expected to set aside their own politics in the performance of their duties, so are our employees. This does not mean — as one writer recently scoffed — that we “poll people at both extremes of any issue, then paint a line down the middle and point to it as reality.”

But in his haste to make a point, Keller managed to misinterpret the meaning of the quote from Goodman, who left the paper in September to join HuffPo as its business and technology editor.

Goodman's point wasn't presented either as a criticism of the NYT, or in the form of a scoff. In fact, he represents the notion quoted by Keller as a "false idea" of journalism, and nowhere does he mention the NYT. Here is the full context of Goodman's comment:

In the sort of journalism I am interested in practicing here, I want my reporters to reject the false idea that you simply poll people at both extremes of any issue, then paint a line down the middle and point to it as reality.

We emailed Goodman last night for his reaction to Keller's misrepresentation of his point. Here is the full text of his reply:

I greatly respect Bill and I still love the Times, and I'm not sure why he construed my sentence as a "scoff." I don't get why he apparently took it as being about the Times, when I was speaking much more generally about a troubling default mode in contemporary journalism. I was simply saying that I think it's crucial that journalists report impartially, insofar as we start our inquiry without being beholden to any particular interest, but equally that we then write it as we see it, without fretting over how readers will see us. I was in particular criticizing the tendency in many publications to insert mentions of bogus contentions as a means of inoculating themselves against claims that they are staking out a clear position. That doesn't help readers decide anything for themselves. It's phony centrism masquerading as impartiality. At the HuffPost, I don't allow my reporters to start out trying to buttress an ideological position, but if the reporting winds up going there, I see no value in muddying it up with dubious pseudo-facts aimed at creating a false sense of balance.

What makes Keller's misrepresentation notable is his ongoing battle with Arianna Huffington that began with his last NYT Magazine column. In that piece, Keller took strong issue with aggregation as a media business model, and his broadside against Huffington led to a brief skirmish between the two media titans.

Curiously, Keller appeared to be ignoring his own commentary about journalism and impartiality in his misquotation of Goodman's column in the Huffington Post.

"Once you proclaim an opinion," Keller wrote in today's column, "you may feel an urge to defend it, and that creates a temptation to overlook inconvenient facts when you should be searching them out."

Perhaps that explains why Keller overlooked the "inconvenient facts" of what Goodman actually wrote before making his point today.

Did NYT's Charles Isherwood Actually Sing Along At The End of "Where's Charley"? By Jove, We Think He Did.

In the last paragraph of theater critic Charles Isherwood's gushing review of "Where's Charley?" this morning came this confession:

And in the key role of Charley, Mr. McClure scampers to and fro with tireless energy, flouncing in and out of his skirts with comic verve, employing a funny, pinched falsetto when Charley is impersonating his aunt. The most famous song in Loesser’s score — really the only famous one — is “Once in Love With Amy,” credited with saving the musical’s fortunes during an uneasy out-of-town tryout, when Bolger invited the audience to sing along.

As performed (and led) by Mr. McClure, a nimble dancer and terrific singer, it naturally brings the show to a genial, mildly intoxicating climax. Normally I find the invitation to sing along about as appealing as a date with the dental surgeon. On this rare occasion, I found it almost impossible to resist.

This doesn't quite top Frank Rich's now-legendary 1987 leap onto the stage of "Starlight Express" in roller skates, but we're still impressed.

Jay Maeder Gets Editors' Note For Self-Plagiarism In City Room Blog; Columnist Tom Friedman Still At Large.

In this morning's corrections column, former New York Daily News reporter Jay Maeder got his wrist publicly slapped for committing a sin practiced by Thomas L. Friedman, its own Pulitzer prize-winning columnist: he copied from himself.

The difference, in this case, appears to be that Maeder lifted his lines from his former employer's paper, the Daily News -- while Friedman took his words from the NYT itself.

Curiously, there's a contradiction between the Editor's Note as published in the paper this morning, and the one published online. The online note cites three instances of self-plagiarism -- one in each of the City Room blog posts written by Maeder -- while the print edition refers only to two.

From the print edition:

A City Room article on Monday about renewed criticism of the “Rough Boy” statue at Queens Borough Hall included descriptions of the historical background very similar to material the same author had published in The Daily News in 2000. And a Feb. 18 City Room article by that writer, about the naming of the George Washington Bridge, also included passages similar to an account he wrote for The Daily News in 2000. Had Times editors known of the earlier articles, those passages would not have been used.

From the Edtor's Note on Maeder's February 23 City Room post -- one of three historical reflections by Maeder called the "Way Back Machine" -- on the arrival of air mail:

This post includes descriptions of the historical background similar to material the same author published in The Daily News in 1998. Had editors known of the earlier article, those passages would not have been used. Two other posts by this author also included descriptions similar to material he had previously written for The Daily News.

How many times did Maeder copy himself, guys -- two or three? Get your stories straight and report back to us in tomorrow's corrections column.

Although it's not quite the same as stealing someone else's words, the practice of self-plagiarism is considered unethical by most journalism professionals.

That's why we called attention to it way back in September of 2009, when Tom Friedman lifted an entire paragraph from a three-month-old op-ed column and put it in a new one -- a clear cut-and-paste job by one of the NYT's biggest stars.

Here's what Friedman wrote in "Can I Clean Your Clock?" published on July 4, 2009:

Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention....And when China starts to do that in a big way — when it starts to develop solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform — watch out. You won’t just be buying your toys from China. You’ll be buying your energy future from China.

Here's essentially the same paragraph in Friedman's "The New Sputnik," published less than three months later:

What do we know about necessity? It is the mother of invention. And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.

This isn't the only instance of Friedman lifting material from other columns to fill out new ones. In December of 2008, we noted Friedman's frequent use of the Flintsones as an ongoing metaphor to apply to all situations -- most often juxtaposing them to the Jetsons, for added emphasis.

We don't excuse Maeder's apparent borrowing of language from his past work in the Daily News, and we suppose there's an added problem in using words that appeared in another newspaper.

But it doesn't seem fair to call Maeder out on his mistake, while the NYT allows Friedman's repetition of ideas and phrases to appear without reprimand. The NYT needs a policy on self-plagiarism that applies equally to all its contributors, without fear or favor.

On Language: Hugo Lindgren's New NYT Magazine Rewrites "Lives" Column, Cuts Use Of "Fuck," "Shit" And "Dude."

On the back page of Hugo Lindgren's newly-remodeled NYT Magazine -- you know, the one that unceremoniously axed the "On Language" column after 32 years -- there's a sweet little essay in the "Lives" column from a dude named Justin Horner.

We say "dude" because Horner likes to say "dude." He said "dude" several times in his original version of the essay -- along with several other turns of phrase that made his writing distinct and wonderful and fresh.

That was before Lindgren's pencil-pushers had their way with it.

It's still a charming little yarn about a family of Mexican immigrants who stopped along the side of an Oregon road to help a man change a tire. Nothing much special about it, except the raw truth of the moment conveyed by Horner -- who isn't even a writer. He's a graphic designer. He just happens to have a terrific natural voice.

The NYT notes that the essay was "adapted from a message board posting on reddit.com." So we went poking around for the original. It wasn't hard to find, because the Reddit community was abuzz with comments about the NYT's editorial process.

We're glad the NYT published the piece; it's sweet and likely to bring a tear to readers' eyes -- and not the first, probably, for regular readers who miss the multitude of staples (Randy Cohen's Ethicist, Deborah Solomon's Q-and-A, Virginia Heffernan's Medium column, Pete Wells' Cooking with Dexter) now gone to make way for columns called "Riff," "Look" and "You Are Here."

We'll leave those new features alone for the time being and let them evolve. A magazine is a living organism that needs time to breathe.

But in going through the two Justin Horner pieces carefully -- his has been referred to as "Today You, Tomorrow Me" on the web, while the NYT's version has been less effectively titled "The Tire Iron and the Tamale" -- we found ourselves disillusioned by the unnamed editor's excessive blue pencil.

The piece isn't ruined; far from it. But it sure ain't better, dude.

Here are some examples.

For instance, here's the graceful, evocative lede to the original piece that the NYT editor lopped off:

Just about every time I see someone I stop. I kind of got out of the habit in the last couple of years, moved to a big city and all that, my girlfriend wasn't too stoked on the practice. Then some shit happened to me that changed me and I am back to offering rides habitually. If you would indulge me, it is [a] long story and has almost nothing to do with hitch hiking other than happening on a road.

Okay, maybe it's not exactly on point. But we liked the way he moseyed into the topic, which he put on a Reddit thread on hitchhiking. Even without that context, there's a sort-of poetry to that line.

Then Horner wrote this:

Anyway, each of these times this shit happened I was DISGUSTED with how people would not bother to help me. I spent hours on the side of the freeway waiting, watching roadside assistance vehicles blow past me, for AAA to show. The 4 gas stations I asked for a gas can at told me that they couldn't loan them out "for my safety" but I could buy a really shitty 1-gallon one with no cap for $15. It was enough, each time, to make you say shit like "this country is going to hell in a handbasket."

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Immigrants. Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke a lick of the language. But one of those dudes had a profound affect on me.

Which the NYT changed to this:

Each time, when these things happened, I was disgusted with the way people didn’t bother to help. I was stuck on the side of the freeway hoping my friend’s roadside service would show, just watching tow trucks cruise past me. The people at the gas stations where I asked for a gas can told me that they couldn’t lend them out “for safety reasons,” but that I could buy a really crappy one-gallon can, with no cap, for $15. It was enough to make me say stuff like “this country is going to hell in a handbasket,” which I actually said.

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Immigrants. Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke any English.

Let's see: the editor changed "shit" to "things," "blow" to "cruise," changed the quotes -- presumably after the "fact checkers" couldn't confirm the conversations Horner had with gas-station attendants -- noted that Horner had "actually said" the line that "this country is going to hell in a handbasket," and cut the first of the piece's many reference to "dudes."

Then this became that.

This, in Horner's original prose:

I start taking the wheel off and, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones and I wasn't careful and I snapped the head I needed clean off. Fuck.

That, in NYT-speak:

I started taking the wheel off, and then, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones, and I wasn’t careful, and I snapped the head clean off. Damn.

Commas, small word changes, the deletion of an obscenity...small changes, true, but nonetheless altering the author's true voice and rhythms.

The rest of the edits go pretty much along those lines -- a shit here, a fuck there -- until we get to the ending. Here's where the NYT editor took one too many liberties with the language of the writer.

Horner:

Dude just smiles, shakes his head and, with what looked like great concentration, tried his hardest to speak to me in English: "Today you.... tomorrow me."

Rolled up his window, drove away, his daughter waving to me in the rear view. I sat in my car eating the best fucking tamale of all time and I just cried. Like a little girl. It has been a rough year and nothing has broke my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn't deal.

In the 5 months since I have changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and, once, went 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won't accept money. Every time I tell them the same thing when we are through:

"Today you.... tomorrow me."

NYT:

The guy just smiled and, with what looked like great concentration, said in English: “Today you, tomorrow me.”

Then he rolled up his window and drove away, with his daughter waving to me from the back. I sat in my car eating the best tamale I’ve ever had, and I just started to cry. It had been a rough year; nothing seemed to break my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn’t handle it.

In the several months since then I’ve changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and once drove 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won’t accept money. But every time I’m able to help, I feel as if I’m putting something in the bank.

No argument this time. Horner's ending was better.

We're not against editing. But we're sorry to see the NYT Magazine simultaneously drop its classic column about language, and add elements so editor-driven that Lindgren felt it necessary to add ludicrous editor "bylines" to the ends of features.

What made previous incarnations of the NYT Magazine so special -- we're thinking back through its history, when writers from Leo Tolstoy to J. Anthony Lukas graced its pages -- was its commitment to voice.

We get that the NYT is a "family newspaper" and that family newspapers don't say fuck. But isn't it time for a re-think on that policy? We've been arguing for a while against the NYT's antiquated rules against obscenity -- which only calls attention to their absence, in a world where they've become commonplace in print. It's going to happen sooner or later; why not now?

Meanwhile, we hope that the Lindgren era that began today will eventually bring with it the commitment to language and style that was the essence, and point, of the column he killed. The Horner edit isn't a very auspicious start.

Whoops! "She Doesn't Come Off As An Older, Desperate Person," 28-Year-Old Groom Tells NYT, Of 37-Year-Old Bride.

Will this marriage make it past the publication of their NYT wedding announcement this morning?

In today's NYT Styles section, the wedding blurb for 28-year-old Nathan Love and his 37-year-old bride, Karen Alinauskas, included an extended section about the couple's romance. Towards the end, it addressed the nine-year age gap between husband and wife.

"Later that February, when she thought that she could be falling for him, she began to question the differences in their ages," NYT weddings reporter Rosalie R. Radomsky wrote. "'I was thinking a 26-year-old is definitely not serious,' Ms. Alinauskas said. But she added that Nizza Heyman, her friend, told her: 'Don’t question love. Just enjoy yourself.'"

Turning to Love, Radomsky found the groom with his foot hoveringly perilously close to his mouth. She asked him about the age difference, whereupon he shoved it in -- perhaps permanently.

"As for Mr. Love, age was never really a concern. 'She’s brilliant and has a young soul,' he said. 'She doesn’t come across as an older, desperate person.'"

Fortunately for Love, the wedding took place last Monday evening.

Are NYT Critics Losing It? Ratliff Mistakes Trombone For Trumpet, Pareles Gets A Song Wrong, And Stanley Hears "Oddball" As "Awful."

Of course we all know that any critic can occasionally get it wrong.

But from the string of flubs in today's NYT corrections column, it would appear that the NYT's aging team of arts critics might be having some trouble following along with the art forms they're paid to cover.

According to the corrections:

-- In a critic's notebook on a 92nd Street Y performance last week, Ben Ratliff mistook a for a trombone for a trumpet.

-- In a review of Keith Jarrett's Sunday Carnegie Hall concert, Jon Pareles misheard an encore as the song "Someone To Watch Over Me." (The song was actually "Someday My Prince Will Come.")

-- In her Tuesday Golden Globes recap, Alessandra Stanley mistakenly quoted Christian Bale referring to the "awful characters" who make up the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Actually, he called them "oddball characters."

Okay, so we'll be the first to admit that sometimes we find ourselves saying "huh?" in our Broadway balcony seats, or turning up the sound full blast when the characters on "Modern Family" mutter under their breath.

But it may be time for NYT critics to step it up a notch -- the volume, that is.

Maybe we're being a little greedy this morning -- the jet lag, and all -- but we're counting on the NYT's highly-paid, experienced team of arts critics to tell the difference between musical instruments, name tunes properly, and get the words right on television shows.

The NYTPicker And Maureen Dowd On Vacation Together At Undisclosed Mediterranean Location. Please Stand By.

Due to the volume of requests for information, we are revealing today that The NYTPicker and Maureen Dowd have been on vacation together for three weeks at an undisclosed location in the Mediterranean. Please stand by. Posting will resume shortly.

NBC's Brian Williams Declares NYT's "Discovery" of Brooklyn As Media Story Of 2010. "It's Like Marrakesh," He Says.

NBC News anchorman Brian Williams has declared the NYT's "discovery of Brooklyn" as the media story of 2010.

"There are young men and women wearing ironic glass frames on the streets," Williams said incredulously last Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," remarking on some of the NYT's more notable Brooklyn finds. "They are making grilled cheese sandwiches in the streets."

Williams's brilliant comic tirade at the NYT's expense came in response to Joe Scarborough's statement that he believed the iPad to be the media sensation of the year.

We've transcribed Williams's reply, and the rest of his riff, but you're better off just watching the short YouTube video clip:

WILLIAMS: It’s pretty slick. I am rarely without mine. I, however, am going to go a bit differently. I thnk the media story of the year, in 2010, was the NYT’s discovery of Brooklyn. Once a day, there’s a story about all the riches offered in that borough. There are young men and women wearing ironic glass frames on the streets. There are open air markets, like trading posts in the early Chippewa tribe, where you can make beads at home and then trade them for someone to come over and start a small fire in your apartment that you share with nine others. Artisinal cheeses. For sale, on the streets of an entire American borough. It’s been fascinating to watch the paper venture over the bridge. Venture through the tunnel. Go out to the outer reaches. The outer boroughs of the city. All different sections of the paper.

SCARBOROUGH: I want to get this down for Harold Ford. We’re going to take the subway over there.

WILLIAMS: They are making grilled cheese sandwiches in the streets. There are roving wagons that will make you a - Brooklyn. Yes….it’s just a fantastic….it’s like Marrakesh over there.

SCARBOROUGH: Who is the Lewis & Clark of the New York Times to discover Brooklyn?

WILLIAMS: I’m too busy reading content to notice bylines. I’m leaving here to get to an artisanal market that just opened up today. It’s a flash artisanal market. The newest thing.

"Spider-Man" Director Julie Taymor Withdraws From NYT's Arts & Leisure Weekend. Is She Mad At NYT? We Would Be.

It turns out the NYT's Arts & Leisure Weekend's one sure-fire newsmaking event -- a January 8 conversation between "Spider-Man" director Julie Taymor and NYT theater reporter Patrick Healy -- has been quietly cancelled.

Without making any public announcement, the NYT sent a refund notice yesterday to ticket-holders already going to the session. But it's still listed on the front page of its online schedule -- it doesn't even rate a red "cancelled" banner over the listing -- and when you click to buy tickets, the site says only: "The chosen event is not available for sale at this time. Please choose a different event."

Translation: it ain't happening, folks. And we all know why. It has to do with the mess that is "Spider-Man," and maybe even the aggressive way the NYT has been covering the story.

From the beginning, Healy's coverage of the production has poked at its high cost, its shifting start dates, its lack of adequate investment, and its dangers.

Starting in October -- when an actor named Kevin Aubin was injured during a demonstration of the show's special effects -- Healy has kept up the heat on Taymor and "Spider-Man." The NYT's Dave Itzkoff broke the news of the December 20 accident that left actor Christopher Tierney in the hospital with multiple injuries.

In a daring stunt of its own, the next morning NYT posted on its website 8 seconds of terrifying amateur video of the accident -- likely to become a veritable Zapruder film in the annals of this troubled production.

That can't have made anyone happy.

The show's opening has been moved to Febuary 7. Meanwhile it has been jammed for previews, despite widespread criticism of Taymor -- who Broadway actor Adam Pascal said should be brought up on assault charges. NYT commenters have been nearly unanimous in their attacks on the show and its director.

We wrote to Healy twice about the cancelled event; still no reply.

We did reach Rick Miramontez, the publicity agent for "Spider-Man," who referred our questions to Taymor's own publicity agents.

We asked Miramontez via email if either Taymor or the producers of "Spider-Man" are satisfied with the NYT's coverage.

"Please ask us next week," Miramontez replied, cryptically.

Meanwhile, don't despair. Some $30 tickets are still available to see Gail Collins interview Katie Couric.

UPDATE: About three hours after we posted this story, NYT arts reporter Dave Itzkoff posted about Taymor's withdrawal from the event on the NYT's Arts Beat blog.

Sunday NYT Book Reviewer Accidently Attributes P.J. O'Rourke Quote To...Frederich Nietzsche?!

It's an easy mistake. Mixing up 19th century German philosophers and late 20th Century satirists.

Dani Shapiro did it this morning in her Sunday NYT Book Review critique of Poser: My Life In Twenty-Three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer. It's a memoir shaped around the author's favorite yoga positions. Here's the second paragraph of Shapiro's review:

This dark enchantment with the joys, rigors and travails of building a family life is at the center of this fine first memoir, and it’s heartening to see a serious female writer take such a risky step into territory where writers of literary ambition fear to tread, lest they be dismissed as trivial. Bills, laundry, cooking, breast-feeding, baby sitters, holidays, aging parents — my favorite curmudgeon, Nietzsche, put it this way: “Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.”

It's that last line that caught a NYTPicker reader off guard. Our emailer didn't recall Nietzsche making many, you know, home decorating references in his essays. (Although in fact the controversial philosopher did publish a book called The Gay Science.) So we all looked it up and discovered some misinformation on the web. Apparently a lot of quote books wrongly give the nod to Nietzsche on this one.

Our reader found the actual words in a 1994 book by P.J. O'Rourke called Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book For Rude People. On page 19, O'Rourke wrote:

To be a mannerly and courteous person you want only a few things from your real family: dignity, breeding, and piles of money. That's all anyone has ever wanted from a family. But all anyone gets from most families is love. And family love has nothing to do with "true love." Family love is messy, clinging, and of annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.

We've emailed O'Rourke and Shapiro for comment. Nietzsche is dead.

The First Annual NYTPicker Christmas Poem. (With Apologies To Roger Angell.)

Fair readers, hi! It’s almost Christmas morn
And for those not browsing media porn
We thought we’d bring you holiday rhymes
That sync up to the New York Times!

For starters, let’s properly celebrate
With the sterling Nate Silver, and his blog Five-Three-Eight;
He’s new, he’s smart, and well, kinda hunky
As opposed to, say, Detroit’s Nick Bunkley.

To the newsroom! There’s still time for one very last tango;
A three-way with Brian Stelter and (of course) Tim Arango.
And who’s that reading out-of-town clips?
Oh wait, we know - that’s where Dan Barry sits!

Next, quickly, a pit stop in the comfy confines
Of Verlyn Klinkenborg and Francis X. Clines.
Then we’ll deck Trish Hall with boughs of holly!
Maybe she’ll recommend us to replace Tom Jolly.

It’s the end of the year, so let’s stick a fork in
The bloviation of Andrew Ross Sorkin
Instead, let's make some more room on the show
For the numbers machine that is Charles M. Blow.

To Tim O’Brien, we say a hearty hasta la vista!
(Don’t tell him, but we prefer Judy Battista.)
We’ll miss David Shipley, the lord of op-ed;
Can’t we get rid of Paul Krugman instead?

And now, all, a round of he’s-a-jolly-good-fella
To the haircut in chief, the comely Bill Keller
You too, Jill! Come now, wipe off that pout
Bill let you blog about your little dog Scout.

Lest you think this poem is getting too petty
Here’s a tip of our hat to the great Mark Mazzetti!
Between Bruni and Sifton, it’s Frank by a nose
But we’re kind of in awe of Sam’s purply prose.

For tugging at heartstrings, there’s the dynamic duo
Of Susan Dominus and the great Michael Luo
But if it’s humor you hanker for, we have to admit
That nothing beats Maureen Dowd in a snit.

Other kudos include a tip of our sombrero
To Marc Lacey and, of course, Senor Simon Romero.
And here’s a statement that requires no correction;
Alessandra Stanley, you’re TV’s greatest confection!

As long as it’s writers whose gifts we’re exhorting
Here’s to Sam Dolnick for his metro reporting!
And if any athlete, anywhere, is doing bad shit
You can safely be certain it’s known to Mike Schmidt.

To all New York Times reporters posted near war,
We say thank you and godspeed, and nothing at all more.
To Hugo Lindgren, we wish good luck with his rag
You know, the still-curious NYT Mag.

The log’s in the fire, the paper’s ready to burn;
We’re caught up with Nocera and the fair Morgenstern.
We’ve remembered the neediest, and helped out a few
And so now, we say Merry Christmas to you!

Love, The NYTPicker

Bogus! On Page One, NYT Pulitzer Prize Winner Matt Richtel Delivers Phony Email-In-Decline Trend Story.

Does winning a Pulitzer Prize exempt you from properly doing your job at the NYT?

That appears to be the case with Matt Richtel's bogus page-one "trend" story this morning that declares email in "decline" -- a bastion for the "old fogey" who hasn't discovered the joys of text. He emphatically states -- with no reporting to support it -- that online chats and text messaging are "threatening to eclipse email, much as they have already superseded phone calls."

Richtel "proves" his point with the following evidence:

-- Interviews with two young women -- a 17-year-old named Lena Jenny, and a 26-year-old named Katie Bird Hunter -- who say they prefer the speed and convenience of texting.

This is only the most obvious, not the most damning example of Richtel's laziness. But it's clearly not thorough or representative reporting to quote two people as proof of a trend -- especially since neither example suggests that they have given up email in favor of other means to communicate.

But since Richtel's thesis focuses largely on, as he puts it, the "Lenas of the world" -- without making it at all clear what makes Lena a trend --the lack of additional Lenas is a bit disturbing. In the story, Lena calls email "so lame" but doesn't deny using it. And Richtel ends his story on a 23-year-old who complains about the poor grammar in text messages, and continues to use email.

So where's the trend? Where's the reporting? As George Carlin would say: nowhere, mon frere.

-- A reference to a comScore study showing that unique visitors to "major email sites like Yahoo and Hotmail are in steady decline."

Steady decline? Richtel himself notes that visits "peaked" in 2009 and "have since slid." A one-year decline cannot by any stretch of the journalistic imagination be called "steady."

In any case, Richtel also points out that Gmail use is up. So what are the overall statistics that might prove -- or disprove -- his thesis? He doesn't disclose them. A search of the comScore website, with an extensive digest of press releases, didn't reveal the source of Richtel's information, and the hyperlink in the story takes the reader only to the NYT's index of comScore-related stories.

-- An interview with a professor of communications at Rutgers, James E. Katz, who has been a NYT go-to academic for quotes about technology shifts in recent years.

It turns out Katz has been quoted 70 different times by a multitude of NYT reporters in the last decade -- including in 16 different stories by Richtel since 2004. Like the famed Syracuse University quotemeister Robert Thompson, Katz helpfully delivers pithy quotes to bogus trendspotters like Richtel, on deadline.

In their first conversation in August of 2004, Katz offered Richtel the requisite expert quote he needed for a story about the possible listing of cell-phone numbers.

''People would love to be able to contact each other,'' Katz told Richtel. ''But they are very reluctant to be reached.'' Huh?

In today's story, Katz said that email is "painful" for young people. "It doesn't suit their social intensity," he says. Painful? Seriously?

Aside from the story's multiple reportorial weaknesses, Richtel's writing also suffers from laziness unbecoming of the NYT's front page. Consider this embarrassing lede:

Signs you’re an old fogey: You still watch movies on a VCR, listen to vinyl records and shoot photos on film.

And you enjoy using e-mail.

It's usually a bad sign for a trend story when the reporter can't dredge up a worthy anecdote for the lede, and instead is forced to fall back on this sort of hackneyed prose to make a point.

Richtel has worked at the NYT since 2000, and won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting this year for the 2009 series "Driven To Distraction," about the dangers of texting while driving. He has also written a mystery novel, and until recently published a regular daily cartoon strip.

We've contacted Richtel to get his comment on today's story. Based on his apparent poor effort, we wonder if maybe Richtel's a little distracted, too.

Daddy Dearest: NYT's Deborah Solomon Reveals Odd Obsession With Fathers As Role Models, And Mothers As Nags.

In tomorrow's "Questions For" interview in the NYT Magazine, Deborah Solomon tosses Columbia physicist Brian Greene this seeming softball: "What did your dad do for a living?"

A reasonable question, perhaps -- until you remember that this is 2010, and that working mothers have been a prominent presence in American society for longer than the 53-year-old Solomon has been alive.

But over the course of Solomon's decade-long role as the NYT's official weekly interlocutor, she has never -- not once -- asked a subject a direct question about a mother's choice of career.

By contrast, Solomon has on numerous occasions asked people about their fathers' professions, with the unspoken presumption that the mother's occupation is somehow irrelevant to the topic. Beyond that, Solomon's father-oriented questions reveal an almost-obsessive fascination with the role of fathers and fatherhood -- with her questions about mothers often implying a peripheral, nagging role in child development.

For example, in tomorrow's Greene interview, Solomon follows up her straightforward question about his father's career with a flip refererence to mothers' outsize expectations for their children's success:

"And what about your mom? Does she expect you to win a Nobel Prize soon?"

To Greene's credit, he ignores Solomon's snide question, and quickly notes that his mother is "something of a real estate mogul." (He does obediently buy into Solomon's sardonic view of mothers, by noting that his mom wishes he'd become a doctor.)

Typically, Solomon acts as though her interview subjects' mothers don't work, and only function as nagging annoyances. She underscores her obsession with a consistent curiosity about how men see ther own roles as fathers, or what impact fathers' jobs had on the careers of the celebrated people she interviews.

Solomon's questions about mothers tend to go in an edgier direction, sometimes implying that moms didn't know best. Consider this one-two punch from her May 2010 interview with Martha Stewart: "Where does your ambition come from? Did you have a critical mom?"

Ditto this dismissive query from her May 2009 interview with Senator Arlen Specter:

"This article is scheduled to appear on Mother's Day," Solomon noted to the Pennsylvania Republican. "Is there anything to be said about your mother?"

Solomon seems to see mothers as bothers and scolds, rather than role models. Check out this pointed jab from Solomon's September 2010 session with rocker Phil Collins:

"The cover of your new album is a photograph of you as a teenage drummer," Solomon observed, then inquired: "Did your mother tell you when you played the drums that you were giving her a headache?"

Or the time she noted to rocker Eminem that "even your mother sued you for defamation." Or when she asked blogger Mickey Kaus during his his recent campaign for the Senate, "Does your mom approve of your Senate bid?"

Meanwhile, dads continue their noble role in their children's lives -- often presented by Solomon as simple statements of fact. "Your Greek immigrant dad ran an all-night diner in Kearney, Neb.," she reminded financier Peter Peterson. "We should mention that your dad is R. Crumb, a reclusive and revered figure who was a founder of the underground-comics movement in San Francisco in the ’60s," she genuflected at artist Sophie Crumb.

Sometimes, Solomon's fascination with dads sometimes comes off as nothing short of rude. "Where is your dad these days?" she asked basketball star Shaquille O'Neal this past August. No mention of the mom who raised O'Neal, even though she's alive and well, and writing her memoirs.

We've emailed Solomon for comment. But we know, on the face of it, that in a society where women -- like Solomon -- have long held jobs as distinguished and important as men, her failure to ask her subjects about their mothers' careers and influence is narrow-minded and bizarre.

UPDATE: In what turns out to be an bizarre coincidence -- or no coincidence at all -- Solomon herself wrote an essay called "Daddy Dearest" in The New Criterion in 1988, which revealed quite a bit about her own father issues.

"Fathers never know how they'll be remembered by their scribbling children," Solomon wrote at the outset of the piece, ostensibly a review of two memoirs by women artists about their fathers. Solomon wrote in great detail about the effect of their fathers' accomplishments and expectations, and how they played out in their daughters' lives.

In the end, Solomon appears to be troubled by the attacks perpetrated by the two authors -- Musa Mayer and Eleanor Munro -- on their dads. She refers to Mayer's memoir as a "serpent's tooth of a book" devoted to her relationship with her father, the painter Philip Guston.

"[A]ll this becomes mere backdrop to the baroque spectacle of Mayer’s struggle for her father’s approval and affection," Solomon writes. "The point of Night Studio is not to illumine the artist’s achievements but to catalogue the sufferings of Guston fille." Solomon acknowledges that Guston was, as his daughter notes, preoccupied with his work, but then notes, "what artist isn't?"

The Eleanor Munro memoir came in for similar attack by Solomon, who saw it as another example of a daughter unfairly resenting the effect of her father's success on her own creativity. Solomon bristles at the suggestion that Munro's father did anything wrong:

“Our father’s work and taste set us apart,” [Munro] smugly notes, speaking for herself and her siblings. Eleven pages later, she visits the home of a high-school classmate in Shaker Heights, a wealthy suburb. The fathers there, com pared to her own, “did not come down hard on ideas they disagreed with, having none of their own.” This is an offensive statement, and it reminded me of something Delmore Schwartz once said: there’s nothing so great about ideas; taxi drivers have them, too.

We're still sorting through our sense of the meaning in all this. It's clear that Solomon has an unusually exalted view of fathers and their importance -- to the point where mothers barely merit a mention. It's also clear that Solomon sees successful fathers as unfairly blamed for their children's problems.

Our problem with all of this isn't, as one commenter suggests, that we want to enforce some politically correct approach to questions in Solomon's column. It's that we believe that mothers -- whatever they do to occupy their time -- merit a mention in her efforts to understand the people she interviews.

Whether it's changing diapers or the world, mothers seem worthier of Solomon's attention than she seems willing to offer -- which is almost no attention at all.

Seriously? NYT's Knicks Reporter Slams Spike Lee's Courtside Fashions, Declaring: "Jerseys Aren't A Good Look."

Criticizing Spike Lee for wearing a basketball jersey at a Knicks games strikes us as sort of like attacking Anna Wintour for turning up in an Armani suit at Fashion Week.

And yet NYT Knicks beat reporter Jonathan Abrams took to Twitter late last night -- after the Knicks got blown out at the Garden by the Miami Heat -- to admonish the Knicks' number-one fan for wearing a traditional blue-and-orange Knicks number-six jersey to the game.

"Nothing against Spike," Abrams tweeted, "but jerseys aren't a good look for a grown man unless you're playing in your own."

Hmmm. Has Abrams not noticed that thousands of grown men show up at Madison Square Garden in jerseys every home game? Or, for that matter, everywhere basketball is played? Does he not realize that men don't wear jerseys to impress the ladies with their sartorial taste?

And does he not realize that to Knicks fans, the director of "Do The Right Thing" is a legendary, larger than life hero? Dude, you don't diss Spike Lee.

Lee goes to nearly every home Knicks game and sits (it's more of a crouch, really) in his customary courtside seat opposite the Knicks bench, wildly cheering on team members in his unofficial capacity as Knicks cheerleader and mascot. Knicks fans love Lee's crazed devotion to the team, who before this season had been on a decade-long slide into the NBA basement.

In return, Lee can wear jerseys to a Knicks game anytime he wants, and he will look awesome in it. End of story.

Slobber Alert: NYT's Steve Lohr Puckers Up For Jeffrey Immelt GE Wet Kiss In Sunday Business.

Last Sunday, the NYT Sunday Business section published a Pulitzer-worthy classic on its cover -- David Segal's epic, brilliant journey into the madness and manipulations of Vitaly Borker and his DecorMyEyes website scam.

But this week -- to borrow the language of the virtual GE press release it published as a cover story today -- it's "back to basics" for a NYT section more notable for its flackery than its scoops. Too often, its columns promote products, its interviews push personalities, and its cover stories depend more on exclusive access than investigative muscle.

That's the story behind this week's wet kiss. In 3,690 words, longtime NYT business reporter Steve Lohr manages to reward one of America's most battered corporations, GE, with the chance to resurrect itself -- simply, it seems, as payback for the chance to interview Jeffrey Immelt, its struggling CEO.

As anyone who follows the business world knows, GE took a major beating in the 2008 economic meltdown, having pinned its future on its GE Capital financial services unit. That resource fell apart in 2008, as the credit crisis left GE reeling.

Suddenly, a company that once seemed a bedrock of American capitalism and success appeared to be on the ropes -- so much so that the NYT's own best business columnist, Joe Nocera, had to take to print to assure readers last year that GE would survive.

After laying out its litany of huge missteps, Nocera declared in a March 2009 column: "Can you see now why investors no longer feel they can trust General Electric?" Nocera insisted that the company needed to "open the kimono and disclose its assets and how it values them."

But now, 18 months later, Lohr has fallen prey to that classic corporate gambit -- access to the CEO for an "exclusive" interview, and a guided tour of exactly what the company wants the public to see, and nothing else.

Beyond that, Lohr excluded from his epic piece the most recent -- and damaging -- public-relations blow to the company's reputation: Thursday's revelation that GE borrowed $16 billion from the Federal Reserve in the fall of 2008, well before anyone realized the depth of troubles with the company's credit.

And as if to underscore Lohr's omission, today's "Fair Game" column by NYT Pulitzer Prize winner Gretchen Morgenson, "So That's Where The Money Went" -- on the same Sunday Business front page -- purports to look at the recipients of the Fed's loans, yet also leaves GE off the list of lucky borrowers. Instead, she puts her spotlight on the usual suspects like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch.

There has been no mention of GE's access to billions in bailout funds anywhere else in the NYT this week, for that matter. A Thursday page-one story by Sewell Chan and Jo Craven McGinty didn't disclose the GE billions, either.

It was reported, instead, by former NYT investigative reporter Jeff Gerth on the ProPublica website -- Gerth noting that GE took the bailout billions "even as the blue-ribbon company enjoyed the highest credit rating available at the time."

Why no update of Lohr's story to include this relevant information? The answer is simple: it would have gone against his thesis, which, to paraphrase George Santayana, is that those who forget the past are...better off.

Instead, Lohr engages in some of the most egregious examples of corporate flackery to have turned up in the NYT's pages in a long time.

Here are just a few examples of language Lohr uses to cast GE and its CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, in a positive light, presumably part of the transaction for managed access that accounts for the interview, Lohr's visit to a GE factory, and five giant photos portraying Immelt and his workers as hopeful, endearing folk emerging from a financial mess not of their making.

The story quotes Immelt at epic length, frequently without qualification or question, and often permitting him to lapse into coporate doublespeak with references to things like "aspirational" goals. When Immelt acknowledges the company's colossal errors under his leadership, Lohr says he does so "candidly." All but three people quoted in the story are friends, present or former employees of GE -- including factory workers who offered their we-love-GE soundbites with all the candor of a worker being watched by the PR machine that arranged the interviews.

A sampler, beginning with Lohr's saccharine summary of Immelt's broad strategy to return GE to dominance:

Having skirted disaster, G.E. is recovering gradually these days. Its finance unit is on the mend, with the size of its debts and troubled loans trending downward. Mind you, middling recoveries are a relative matter at G.E. After all, the company remains a colossus on track to deliver profits of more than $10 billion on sales of about $150 billion this year. But investors are used to getting more from G.E., which earned $22 billion on revenue of $173 billion in 2007. So G.E. has revamped its strategy in the wake of the financial crisis. Its heritage of industrial innovation reaches back to Thomas Edison and the incandescent light bulb, and with that legacy in mind, G.E. is going back to basics.

Then a few words of sympathy for the beleaguered CEO:

Mr. Immelt and his advisers had plenty of company in missing the gathering storm...

Mr. Immelt is backing his words with actions...

On to Immelt's strategy, and how well it's already working:

About 1,000 miles from corporate headquarters, inside a gleaming new plant that is the result of a $100 million, three-year investment, G.E.’s back-to-basics strategy is on display....It is an industrial symphony of materials science, high-tech machinery and hand craftsmanship.

Next, a few positive quotes from people whose paychecks Immelt signs:

Audra Harris, 36, left a job as a machine operator at a commercial roofing manufacturer to come to the G.E. plant. In her first months, Ms. Harris says she initially found the team approach “very challenging,” but adapted quickly. "Here you get to make a lot of decisions," she says....

Steve Lentz, 55, who had worked in a printing factory and a bottling factory before joining G.E, says the large investment in a high-tech facility proved that the company had a long-term commitment. "I figured I could wrap up my career here,” he says. “At other places, you don’t know when the shoe will drop."....

Back to Immelt, who thinks GE's doing a pretty good job, if he says so himself:

Being nuanced in foreign markets, [Immelt] says, is a skill that "I think we’re pretty good at."....

“It’s about using the scale of G.E., the majesty of the company, to drive growth and change,” [Immelt] says...

More GE employees weigh in with praise for the boss:

Mr. Immelt, according to Beth Comstock, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at G.E., is constantly scouting for opportunity. “He says, ‘Hey, I think there’s something here,’ ” Ms. Comstock says. “Let’s see what we can do.” When he gets excited, teams are dispatched to assess markets, products and research and technology trends, typically in a few weeks or less...

But wait! Apparently, sometimes Immelt has to make a tough decision or two:

Occasionally, Mr. Immelt just issues an order. After a trip to Brazil in January, he became convinced that the country was rapidly advancing in technology and that G.E. should place a research lab there. When he returned to the United States, he told Mr. Little, as Mr. Immelt recalls, “Hey dude, you’re going to put a global research center in Brazil. Pick a good place.” Last month, G.E. announced it would build a research center in Rio de Janeiro....

Leadership by fiat when done in moderation, Mr. Immelt says, can drive change and set a course. “I think that if you run a big company, you’ve got to four or five times a year, just say, ‘Hey team, look, here’s where we’re going,’ ” he says. “If you do it 10 times, nobody wants to work for you. If you do it zero times, you have anarchy....

Things are going to turn out pretty well for GE. Maybe. Assuming this happens and that happens and something else happens, that is:

The near-term prospects for G.E.’s stock seem to depend, if not on financial engineering, then at least on financial moves that might lift the dividend back toward its pre-crisis levels. The sale to Comcast could bring $8 billion in cash. And negotiating with Mr. Buffett to buy back his $3 billion in preferred stock, which pays a 10 percent dividend, could free up $300 million in yearly fees. Those steps could clear the way to raising the dividend and making the stock fetching again for investors...

In the end, Immelt thinks it's all going work out just fine for GE:

For his part, Mr. Immelt is an optimist. “We’re going to be one of the companies that comes out of the crisis stronger than we went in,” he says. “I think that is something that is ultimately going to be good for employees and investors.”

Fortunately for Immelt, Steve Lohr seems to think so, too.

NYT Vs. NYU! Pulitzer-Winning Reporter Declares War On Journalism Prof Over Lack of Cinammon At Starbucks.

It seemed innocuous enough to us -- or to anyone who has searched for cinnamon to top off an overpriced latte at America's most annoying foamagerie.

Except maybe to NYT Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Don Van Natta Jr.

At around 10:00 pm last night, Adam Penenberg, an NYU journalism professor, turned to Twitter to file a 140-character complaint against everybody's favorite retail punching bag, Starbucks.

"Dear @Starbucks," Penenberg wrote. "At $4+ a grande cappuccino, you should never run out of cinnamon or cocoa powder, yet many of your NY locations do. #cmon."

Just moments later, Van Natta -- who follows Penenberg on Twitter -- fired off this reply:

If you whine here about nonsense-- like no cinnamon at @Starbucks -- you get unfollowed. Adios, @Penenberg.

At which point, apparently, Van Natta deleted Penenberg from his Twitter "follow" list.

Ouch! Seems like an outsize response to a fairly standard Twitter feed, especially given the fact that Penenberg is also a respected investigative journalist -- famous, in fact, for having exposed the fabrications of Stephen Glass at The New Republic while a reporter for Forbes. Penenberg has written books on social media and business, and and has taught at NYU journalism school for several years.

Van Natta's excision of Penenberg from his Twitter feed seems especially odd, considering his own constant use of Twitter -- he posts several times a day -- to file his own offhand comments.

Here's a recent Van Natta sampler:

My World Cup predictions: Spain/Portugal 2018, Australia 2022.

Why does @KingJames still call himself "King of Akron?" Is there a South Beach club named Akron?

This #Knicks team is almost as cool as Clyde Frazier.

Barring last min glitch Gruden is happening. Yeah!!!!!!! http://bit.ly/fJsaSo

Those examples were provided by Penenberg, who told The NYTPicker he was baffled a bit by Van Natta's quick, harsh response.

"It's all so silly and I don't know what set him off," Penenberg wrote us in reply to our questions. "If you check out my tweetstream you'll note that I don't usually blather on about the lack of cinnamon at Starbucks. Then again, it's Twitter, not Charlie Rose."

After citing the examples of Van Natta's own oddball tweets, Penenberg added: "Nothing wrong with that, of course. Although by the standard Van Natta set for me, I'd recommend he immediately stop following himself, just to be consistent."

Penenberg noted on Twitter -- shortly after the Van Natta pronouncement -- that he sees the NYT as being unduly sensitive to outside criticism. He elaborated on that point to The NYTPicker.

"When I said it's typical of the Times I was recalling the way the Times sometimes responds to critical coverage--like stories by Michael Hirshhorn in the Atlantic, Mark [Bowden] in Vanity Fair, and others."

Penenberg then provided a link to what he described as NYT executive editor Bill Keller's "acidic comments" re Bowden's profile of Arthur Sulzberger.

"Some in Times management also don't take kindly to having the paper's online business strategies questioned," Penenberg went on. "As both a fan and critic, I'd like to see the Times act with greater class. Times' management should be able to handle criticism better, not act so thin-skinned. Van Natta's off-his-meds behavior reminded me of that."

Van Natta hasn't yet responded to a request for comment from The NYTPicker.

NYT's 2010 Holiday Gift Guide Recommends The Ugliest Thing Ever Made, For Only $985.

At least this year's NYT Holiday Gift Guide doesn't offer a segregated shopping section for people of color, like last year.

But in its "Home and Decorating Gifts for $250 and over" section, it does recommend this truly hideous zebra teapot, for $985, which may be even worse:

Attention, Pulitzer Prize Jury: Come On, Already. This Is Frank Rich's Year.

In 1987, Frank Rich was a well-deserved finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

But unaccountably, for the last 23 years since then, Rich has not once been in final contention for journalism's top prize.

This ridiculous, inexpicable omission has come despite thirteen years as the NYT's lead drama critic -- where he was, without debate, the best of his generation -- and another sixteen years on the NYT's op-ed page. Meanwhile, Rich's columnist colleagues (Nicholas Kristof, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, and Tom Friedman) have collected a passel of nominations and wins among them.

This is Rich's year. Don't agree? Take a look at today's op-ed page. If you don't shudder with fear at Rich's message, then you simply can't be moved by the power of potent, well-arranged words.

While Dowd tut-tuts comically at the latest failings of her fallen hero, Barack Obama, Rich eloquently warns against the persistent, pernicious threat of Republican firebrand Sarah Palin. Under the perfect title -- "Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha" -- Rich does his passionate best to rile us with the fear that she may make it to White House.

Instead of simply whining about Palin's faux populism, or making fun of her appearance or malaprops -- that's Dowd's default position -- Rich prescribes a solution to her opponents, if they'll only listen:

Revealingly, Sarah Palin’s potential rivals for the 2012 nomination have not joined the party establishment in publicly criticizing her. They are afraid of crossing Palin and the 80 percent of the party that admires her. So how do they stop her? Not by feeding their contempt in blind quotes to the press — as a Romney aide did by telling Time’s Mark Halperin she isn’t “a serious human being.” Not by hoping against hope that Murdoch might turn off the media oxygen that feeds both Palin’s viability and News Corporation’s bottom line. Sooner or later Palin’s opponents will instead have to man up — as Palin might say — and actually summon the courage to take her on mano-a-maverick in broad daylight.

That's classic Rich -- offering his audience not just a vituperative complaint or attack, but also a reasoned recipe for change. He reports his columns by voraciously consuming the culture, and embracing the web: each week the online version of his column links to dozens of articles, commentaries and reports that illuminate his point of view.

Rich has been a powerful force in American journalism for most of his career -- not just as a writer, but also as an informal adviser to NYT editors on matters of hiring and content. He also wrote a moving memoir in 2000, "Ghost Light," that could have justified a Pulitzer on its own. (His other books include a collection of his NYT theater reviews, "Hot Seat," and a 2006 attack on the Bush adminstration called "The Greatest Story Ever Sold."

Yes, Rich preaches to the choir: his mostly-liberal NYT audience probably rejoices each week in how much it agrees with him. But that undersells his gifts at argument and persuasion. Often, Rich's columns -- at 1500 words, longer than any of his colleagues -- go deeper into explanation and example. His raw intelligence and deft touch combine to make him the most powerful liberal voice of our time.

Obviously, there's more to life than a prize, and Rich doesn't need the reward of a Pulitzer jury to measure his worth. But in an industry that still bows down before the almighty prefix -- "Pulitzer prize-winning journalist" -- it seems only fair that Frank Rich at last get his.

NYT Freelancer Sarah Maslin Nir Debuts On Front Page With Phony Trend Story About School Photo Retouching.

It was made to order for a Saturday NYT front page.

Sarah Maslin Nir, the highly visible NYT freelancer who has recently been covering education for the Metro section, delivered a delicious trend story this morning on how kids now get their school photos retouched to remove unsightly scars and imperfections.

Only one problem: it's not a trend at all.

As any photographer -- or former high school student -- can tell you, school photographers have been retouching photos for decades to remove blemishes, scars and other elements that might mar a permanent portrait. It has been standard practice since at least the 1950s, a fact conveniently missing from Nir's story.

Instead, Nir presents this as a new phenomenon, using the standard buzzwords of trend reporting:

The practice of altering photos, long a standard in the world of glossy magazines and fashion shoots, has trickled down to the wholesome domain of the school portrait. Parents who once had only to choose how many wallet-size and 5-by-7 copies they wanted are now being offered options like erasing scars, moles, acne and braces, whitening teeth or turning a bad hair day into a good one.

School photography companies around the country have begun to offer the service on a widespread basis over the past half-dozen years, in response to parents’ requests and to developments in technology that made fixing the haircut a 5-year-old gave herself, or popping a tooth into a jack-o’-lantern smile, easy and inexpensive. And every year, the companies say, the number of requests grows.

But if you need any proof that this phenomenon has been around a while, just take a look at the 179 comments on the piece on the NYT website -- 32 of which specifically recall their own photos being retouched as long ago as the 1950s, and remark that the story reports nothing new at all.

Here's a typical comment, from Norman Baxley of Urbana, Illinois:

It was common practice in early portrait photography to retouch negatives, particularly 4X5" and larger. It was done by applying graphite directly to the surface of the negative. Since dark bags under the eyes and zits are clear on the negative, filling in these areas with graphite caused them to print lighter....Go back and look at high school yearbooks from the mid sixties and earlier and you won't find many zits in the black and white photos!

Or this, from Barbara Leary of Amesbury, Massachusetts:

I am a high school newspaper and yearbook advisor. In a portrait type photo we would almost always remove temporary deformities such as a scratch, pimple, or stray hair as a matter of course....The person who said photos were retouched 40 years ago is correct. Look at a yearbook from 1950 or 60 and you won't see kids with zits all over their portraits....This is NOT another case of our society becoming more fake. It has always been done.

And there are 30 more, making the same point -- that the notion that this is a new practice is false.

By the way, this isn't even the first time this phony trend has been reported recently -- it had been done in Feburary of 2008 in Newsweek. So even if editors bought Nir's faulty thesis, why did they put it on page one?

It may have something to do with Nir, a rising freelance star at the NYT who began contributing to the paper in 2008. Earlier this year Nir was named "The Nocturnalist," a weekly column for the City Room blog that reports on New York nightlife. More recently, Nir has been writing high-profile education stories for the paper.

Today's feature marked Nir's solo page one NYT debut. Unfortunately for her, it's not going to be so easy to airbrush out this story's flaws.

UPDATE: Late this evening, Nir briefly posted two Twitter comments (at her Twitter feed, @NYTNocturnalist) in response to our post, but then took them down. Fortunately we were able to get a screen grab before they disappeared: