PressEthic

Yesterday, September 20th, the New York Times ran one the most inane stories I have read on the front page, albeit at the bottom. The article by Louise Story, titled "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood" also came up as a point of discussion in one of my classes and there was a general consensus that the story did not measure up to good journalistic standards -- it was incomplete and unconvincing. And it wasn't really news.

So, how did it end up on the front page of the Times? It turns out, that's the question on the mind of Slate's Jack Shafer, too. In his piece, "Weasel-Words Rip My Flesh!", he takes apart Story's article, exposing it as unconvincing, and then asks the very question I just did. As Shafer points out, the article relied on insubstantial terms (what he refers to as "weasel-words") to prop up its claim that there's a trend among Ivy League women to see a career as a brief interlude before full time motherhood.

Story uses the particularly useful weasel-word "many" 12 times—including once in the headline—to illustrate the emerging trend of Ivy League-class women who attend top schools but have no intention of assuming the careers they prepared for.

Shafer goes on to identify the 12 places where the word is used and concludes that Story resorted to this tactic because she simply didn't have concrete facts to back up her claims. In fact, he says, her thesis has very little merit because it is formed on the foundation of another weasel-word word, "seems."

"What seems to be changing is that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have children."

Beyond this, what little actual evidence Story does cite is still incomplete. In my class yesterday, questions, some similar to the ones Shafer raises, were asked. Why aren't there more expert opinions to back up the claim? What were the questions on the questionnaire sent out to young women in the Ivy League? How were they framed? Could there have been more quotes from men? Why is this trend, if it indeed is one, important?

Which brings us back to the question: why is this news? Story fails in bringing in an angle that makes this newsworthy. And then, if it was just a fluff piece, as it certainly seems to be, then why was it on the front page? Don't get me wrong. I am all for a controlled amount of fluff in the papers -- it's a welcome break from hard-hitting news sometimes. But there's an appropriate place for it. And the front page is not that place.