PressEthic

In a November 15th article in the Village Voice, Tom Robbins (not the one who wrote Jitterbug Perfume) waits until the sixth paragraph of his article on the NYU strike to mention that oh yeah, Voice employees belong to the same union as the striking GAs. For a reporter, even one at an alternative weekly, belonging to the same union as the strikers is something that should be broadcast as soon as possible.

Now I know that the Voice isn't considered an unbiased source, but it's pat-on-the-back self-righteousness on all matters of media makes the article's blatant shortcomings all the more jarring. Regardless of how one feels about the strike, I think we can all agree that good reporting is good and bad reporting is bad.

In the article, which runs under the headline "The Nerds are Pissed," Robbins glosses over statements such as:

"The school's final contract proposal, union officials said, was a take-it-or-leave-it offer filled with poison pills that would have gutted its ability to represent its members and placed many instructors outside the bargaining unit."

Robbins doesn't elaborate on what exactly these 'poison pills' are (perhaps he thinks that alliteration speaks for itself.) If the "pills" are loss of union representation or bargaining power, then Robbins should devote more time to explain that than relying on a blithe phrase.

Later in the piece, Robbins writes:

Most undergrads expressed sympathy and guarded solidarity. "Graduate students do a lot," said Emily Richard, a senior in the art class. "Why should they have to work in a coffee shop to make enough to live on?"

Interestingly, this is the only student that Robbins quotes in the piece, and he lets the statement stand as fact (that graduate students have to work in a coffee shop to make enough to live on.) This seems to run counter to the idea that a GA who is not paying tuition while also earning a stipend could do something as mundane as taking out a loan, like the majority of graduate students at the university, or work part-time at a job that pays better than Starbucks. Instead of exploring how graduate students get by (a quote from an actual GA working in a coffee shop would have been good here), Robbins quotes one undergrad. But I guess one is all you need for "guarded solidarity."

A few paragraphs down, Robbins misuses the word ironically in a sentence that makes no sense:

"Ironically, despite the special help provided by Bush's NLRB, the university's administration has been guided by two key Sexton aides, both of whom emerged not from the GOP or corporate America, but from the Clinton White House."

The sentence is bad for a couple of reasons. First, the "despite the special help provided by Bush's NLRB" part doesn't add anything (what's the point of saying 'despite' if the NLRB gave NYU what they wanted?), nor does it make the situation 'ironic.' The NLRB ruled that NYU could revoke recognition of the union. NYU's President Sexton wanted to, and had aides who worked for the Clinton White House helping him. No irony here.

Second, the Clinton years were in many ways terrible for organized labor (NAFTA, failure of the health care plan, reduction of the federal workforce.) So even if two former Democratic aides helping Sexton was "ironic," Robbins relies on a tired comparison of the Clinton halo versus the Bush hammer. Bush is in no way better than Clinton (and has made the situation worse for organized labor), but a knee-jerk reaction that the Democratic was good and the Republican was bad makes Robbins come across … well, like a jerk.

Again, the critique here is in no way a critique of the union or the strike. Robbins writes for an alternative weekly that makes no pretensions to neutrality. But the poor reporting in the article makes one pause before trusting the Voice to accurately report other stories.