the Times reviews a critic

JCWisc at aol.com JCWisc at aol.com
Fri Nov 15 17:15:14 PST 2002


In a message dated 11/15/2002 11:31:56 AM Central Standard Time, dougmcgill at yahoo.com writes:


> Not to mention, the Times assigned this piece to the
> lady who normally reviews novels and has virtually no
> interest or background in political writing. So the
> assignment was in itself a slap on the book and its
> ideas. (I'm a former NYT staff reporter and worked on
> the culture desk with MK for four years.)
>
> Doug McGill
> www.mcgillreport.com

I've noticed something like this before. A few years ago the NYT ran a piece on the popularity in Europe of "left-wing" (meaning "liberal") American economists like James Tobin, noting that for all their popularity abroad, their ideas were little regarded in the US. It appeared in the Saturday "Arts" section, which seemed an odd place for it.

The article is still accesssible at

<http://query.nytimes.com/search/article-page.html?res=9B0DE1D71238F932A25752C

1A9669C8B63>

now under the heading "Travel" (!)

The following is the text of a letter to the editor I wrote at the time, which went unpublished. JC

-------------------

November 11, 2000

To the editor:

Why was the article "Thinkers on the Left Get a Hearing Everywhere but at Home" published in the "Arts" section? The piece was about economists such as James Tobin and political activists such as Jeremy Rifkin. They are not artists. The article seems to belong in the "International," or possibly the "Business" section. Maybe part of the reason why "thinkers on the left" fail to receive a fair hearing in the U.S. is because media outlets like the New York Times routinely marginalize them, even if they are Nobel laureates like Tobin. It's not that the arts aren't important, but by placing an article about left-of-center thinkers in the Arts section, the Times seems to be making an implicit editorial statement that their ideas are not to be taken seriously in the "real world."

Jacob Conrad Waukesha, Wis.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list