Rapid Progress Towards Real Reporting at the "New York Times?" (Everything You Know About 'Sex Work' is Wrong)

Good news is reported from our friend at the Angry Bear.

If only it were a trend.

Rapid Progress Towards Real Reporting at the New York Times

Robert Waldmann

September 9, 2015

At 12:07 Eastern standard time 9/10/2015 Alan Rappaport wrote an article on Jeb Bush’s tax proposal whose headline seemed to me to be the title of a Bush campaign press release — it stressed the proposal to close the carried interest loophole and not the huge cuts to top tax rates. About 4 hours later Rappaport and Matt Flegenheimer wrote a Ballanced article whith a headline which noted both.



Then after 2 more hours Josh Barro wrote a serious analysis of the proposal noting that it, like all Republican tax proposals, would amount a to huge gigantic tax cut for the rich (and small piddling tax cuts for the non-rich).



I think this shows the huge gap between beat reporters who aim to please sources and blogging related journalistic activities which are based on looking up the facts and analysing them. The problem is that the Barro article in the upshot will get much less attention than the Rappaport and Flegenheimer article on the web front page.

To me the key question is whether the new blogger influenced fact-based journalism of the "Upshot," "Vox," "Wonkblog," "TPM," etc., will prevent Republicans from tricking voters about their plans to serve the rich as George Bush did in 2000.

Do opinions on shape of planet still differ ?

Update:

This has become very strange. The front page includes a link to Barro’s article but the headline on the Rappaport and Flegenheimer article has regressed describing huge tax cuts for the rich as “populism”. The "NYTimes" headline writer is debating with himself or herself. I guess the insane new main headline was needed to Ballance Barro.



I wonder if part of the issue is innumeracy. Vastly more dollars are involved in the rate cuts than the carried interest loophole but rate cuts consist of replacing a number with another number while “the carried interest loophole” is a phrase. I don’t see how anyone with any sense for numbers can present both in parallel in the same abstract as if they were remotely similar in scale.

Comments

Some truly informed reporting on what's going on behind the huge and growing sex trade is needed in the mainstream media.

Funny how they carry every other sex story isn't it?

Cindy Sheehan's soapbox does the honors.

Everything You Know About 'Sex Work' is Wrong

Mickey Z: Considering that the global sex trade is a massive business and that female voices are so often misrepresented or silenced by the corporate media, is it safe to assume you've faced quite a backlash for speaking out as you do?

Rachel Moran: Well, first of all, whether or not women's voices are silenced very much depends on what it is they have to say. Women who play along with the happy hooker narrative are most welcome in the media. They simply fit the script that's been presented to us through popular culture, and they are also welcome voices because they don't make people feel uncomfortable. They don't force people to challenge the ideas they've absorbed through multiple forms of media, most notably through literature and film; so if you say that you are an "empowered sex worker" you will be lauded and applauded, but if you tell the uncomfortable truth that prostitution is a global system of commercialized sexual abuse played out within the broader system of capitalist patriarchy, your testimony will be unwanted, and unwelcome. 

I have faced an enormous international backlash for speaking out about the system of prostitution, but to be fair, the worst of it has not come from the corporate media. It has come from pro-prostitution lobbyists; people who describe themselves as "sex workers rights activists," the majority of whom have no personal experience of prostitution.

MZ: Who are these “lobbyists” and “activists” and why do you suppose they’re so anxious to attack and even silence someone like you?

RM: The full unabridged account of the global pro-prostitution lobby, who they are, how their interests are interlinked and how they operate internationally, is probably one that can never been written for reasons of its sheer scale and complexity. A concise understanding would take into account that there are basically three groups operating together here: those who are motivated sexually, financially, or ideologically in their pursuit of upholding, defending and maintaining the global sex trade. 

Those who are motivated sexually are of course punters, or johns as they're known in the United States. Those who are motivated financially are pimps, brothel owners, a minority of the women who are currently prostituting, and some harm reduction service providers who are keen to continue receiving funding through government HIV prevention programs which keeps their NGO’s afloat. They distribute clean needles and condoms but express strong opposition to providing actual alternatives to women in prostitution. Those who are motivated ideologically are very often academics, politicians, journalists or other social commentators.

She shakes things up, doesn't she?

More reporters should follow her lead.