What the NYT Got Wrong About Nail Salons
nybooks.com
nybooks.com
[1] http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-new-york-times-email...
[2] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/sunday-review/did-reddi...
"Second, contrary to the implication from the first Times story, Clinton’s emails sent in her role as secretary of state were automatically saved into a secure data system under the control of the department. In fact, where does the Times think the FOIA offices for the State Department and the intelligence community are finding the 55,000 emails now under review that it cites in its new story? Are officials breaking into Clinton’s house in the middle of the night to examine them by flashlight? Nope. They are pulling them off of the system under the department’s control."
The 55,000 emails were exported from the system by her staff, IIRC. I've never read another story that said that her emails were ever under the control of the State Department, which would of course make the email story completely insensible. If this is a false claim, Newsweek is just as confused as the NYT about Clinton's emails, if not more.
At some point the NYT and other media outlets decided the Clinton email story was about "classified emails" rather than an official conducting state business over their own private email. Newsweek is reducing it in this article to an insignificant technicality about FOIA. It's not about FOIA, it's about having a record of state business. FOIA is the only tool that the public has to force release of such records, but FOIA is not the reason we keep them. That's like saying that the reason you have a lock is so you have a place to use the key.
By making the story about the possible release of classified information, it just gives Clinton something that is easy to deny. I wouldn't be surprised if the Clinton team were intentionally steering the coverage in that direction, because when her denials of emailing classified information are proved true, the story will evaporate.
Edit: And maybe another law about how frequently they tend toward populism that ends up alienating the silent-majority of their audience setting up a feedback loop as they strive to even greater monetization despite a decreasing audience.
The only thing the NYT has going for it is reliability. If it's their view that the facts can be had anywhere and what makes them special is the "added value" then they are almost outright admitting that they no longer have any reason to exits.
"Added value" is why the New York Post exists.
http://nypost.com/2015/07/10/apparently-its-now-ok-to-pee-on...
Is there a chance that somehow The Onion has hijacked DNS for the Times and redirected it to a spoof site? Because that's how I read what the Public Editor said!
We're also treated to Orwellian Newspeak. When articles are written with an SJW slant it's not "opinion", but "analysis".
BTW at this moment there are 226 comments on that column on the Times website. People are outraged. Here are some excerpts from a few comments:
The color commentary disgused as "context and
analysis" is just awful—stop it! Just the facts,
please.
This is why the Times has diminishing
readership and crediblity.
I'm just boggled. Readers hammered you on the
factual inaccuracies, bias and agenda pushing
in that article. And that's your response?
My world is crumbling and there's nothing
I can do to stop it.
also should add the author of this nybooks article never interviewed the NYT author.
more related work:
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/q-and-a-luo-y...
http://fusion.net/story/132309/nail-salon-expose-my-manicuri...
Incidentally, here's the reporter saying that the OP article claimed the $10/day ad didn't exist:
> The ad that "doesn't exist" according to @R_Bernstein & @nybooks who calls me a liar & didn't bother to interview me
https://twitter.com/SarahMaslinNir/status/625085019199934464
But he never says that right? (Certainly his inability to find this ad speaks to his not being thorough.)
Would it really have killed them to post an image with legible text? How is this supposed to help anyone?
Here's what I can get:
P/T F/T??? 毛小工$75可3點後上班 學徒??$10 qq??74857128電話或微信 347-952-5533
(as I read it, "part time and full time jobs (???) -- small work with (eyelashes? eyebrows?) $75, start after 3:00 -- apprentice (??) $10 -- QQ (??) 74857128 [editorial note: wow! that's a low number] -- telephone or wechat 347-952-5533")
But a lot of those characters come from my knowledge of what's likely to be said in the ad, not from my ability to recognize them in the image.
http://www.meimin.us/bencandy.php?fid=27&id=265577&city_id=3
I wonder if the $10 isn't per hour, rather than per day.
"licensed eyebrow plucker $75, start after 3:00, apprentice base pay $10"
Would you happen to know why this ad is in simplified characters (except the 拔) while the other one is in traditionals?
The $10 probably is per day; $10 / hour seems high for an untrained, unlicensed worker (and $75 / hour seems high for a licensed eyebrow plucker, too). On the other hand, the apprentice can apparently expect tips just like the licensed worker, if the reference to "base pay" is anything to go by.
The author, Richard Bernstein, concludes:
in extrapolating from the experience of Ms. Ren to make assertions about that “vast majority,” the paper has put its tremendous prestige and power behind a demonstrably misleading depiction of the nail salon business as a whole.
But what's his demonstrable evidence of institutional bias? As the upstanding "part owner of two day-spas in Manhattan", he's never seen anything like the practices described in the article? An equally broad extrapolation.
Even his investigation into the phantom $10 / day ad seems a bit disingenuous. He can't find an ad quoting that rate and it does seem odd that a salon would advertise such a low rate when it could just list no rate at all, which Brownstein concedes the majority of ads do. But he seems to misconstrue the article's quote that "the rate was confirmed by several workers" to suggest that the Times' reporter was using the workers to confirm that such ads were all over the place when the reporter intended instead to confirm that this was a common rate in the industry (regardless of the ad). If it turned out the ad couldn't be substantiated, but the practices described in the article were accurate, it'd be worthy of a correction. But not a retraction.
What we get with Richard Bernstein's article, one might hazard, is a "demonstrably misleading depiction" of the New York Times article from a motivated industry apologist that plugs its own anecdotes and loose figures into a narrative that seems to have its own populist agenda: the New York Times is not much better than HuffPo or Fox News when it comes to real journalism. Does that mean we should also give up on the New York Review of Books? I hope not.
Actually, the NY Times isn't quite claiming that. They were just asking around to confirm that this particular ad was correct, and not a typo.
> @SarahMaslinNir confirmed w/ workers themselves was to make sure it was not a typo and a real wage.
https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/625083693363785728
Indeed, from the original article:
> Ads in Chinese in both Sing Tao Daily and World Journal for NYC Nail Spa, a second-story salon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, advertised a starting wage of $10 a day. The rate was confirmed by several workers.
I'm pretty sure the Times has no evidence that this is anything like a typical wage.
They need better editors and fact checkers and other news organs, such as NPR or HuufPo or Fox, etc., which pick up the flame, should not pick up these stories and take them as self evident truths. They should at least do some rudimentary fact-checking if only as rudimentary as ECC. But no, then narratives would die.
Either they want to portray the struggle of the meek in the face of the oppressor. Or they want to forward an agenda. It's as if they want to be the hero or heroin. But at the same time they want to be known as having journalistic integrity and it seems this is just a mirage. It's all propaganda.
Sometimes I think they just want to provide catharsis for the upper middle class. Oh, we're better than those other middling people, we care. We truly feel sorry and truly want to bring better things to the disadvantaged --but it's all to lessen their own guilt.
There is nothing wrong with saying, a few nail salons are found to exploit a few new immigrants... But no, it has to be a widesweeping generalization, demonizing all nail operators --who can't retaliate against the machine that is the nyt.
I think someone has brought up the idea of a "genius" for these kinds of hitpieces where people with subject matter knowledge or expertise could comment.
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
The full essay appears here: http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/
In addition, most publications have political tendencies and aren't typically totally disinterested.
I largely agree with you, and it's very possible that the original nytimes article is questionable. But a lot of what you said ("poorly researched", "want to forward an agenda") can be said about this article too. Not even attempting to interview the subject of the article (I assume that's what happened based on this tweet: https://twitter.com/SarahMaslinNir/status/625085019199934464) is very poor journalistic standards.
Instead of getting caught in the middle of these two journalists, I'm going to wait for more, solid evidence.
I bet if the NYTimes issues a retraction the mayor issued license requirement won't be lifted.
There is one odd line, "Needless to say, it is not like The New York Times to get things so demonstrably wrong,"
It's just odd because Bernstein effectively makes Erika Allen seem like this decade's Jayson Blair. Makes the reader wonder if the NYT is a pressure cooker for this sort of fabulist.
The one ad is now being used to confirm:
"Asian-language newspapers are rife with classified ads listing manicurist jobs paying so little the daily wage can at first glance appear to be a typo."
The existence of one ad shows that Bernstein wasn't thorough in his search. But the image does not show that papers are rife with such ads.
Either way, though, Nir is writing about vulnerable undocumented immigrants, and Bernstein's describing how the industry works for people who play by the rules and only hire licensed workers.
Since they're talking about different parts of the industry, everything both side argues could be true. I'm reading the twitter exchange, it sounds like they're just shouting past each other.
the author of this post never interviewed the NYT reporter. or her editor
I find it personally disturbing that so many people want to view that image as evidence of anything at all. :/
The character 學 ("study") is visible before an occurrence of $10 in the text, so it's reasonably likely that they're telling the truth about what it says. It's left as an exercise to say why paying your untrained interns $10 / day is so much worse for them than the conventional US practice of paying them nothing.
Was this intentional satire?
Further, like many cash businesses it's likely to attract many illegals which are generally highered at risk. For an industry already stuck at minimum wage across most of the country the only way that risk is worth it is if there making less than that.
PS: the other reason to use illegals is if the supply of workers is limited, but that would tend to push wages well above minimum wage. if the rules where actually inforced many nail bars would likely close, until reduced supply drove up either prices or utilization to support higher worker pay.
The author points out the part about illegals, and claimed that at key parts where it talked about workers as a whole, it drew from a sample of only unlicensed workers, which likely includes a larger proportion of illegals. He said the Times should have tried to estimate the size of this pool amongst the total work force.
PS: If you actually look at the picture you see two customers receiving work (back rub and nails) from multiple workers at the same time. Which means tips are going to be shared and likely to make up some of that 70$ minimum. Sure on a good day tip shares likely bump things past 70$ but per day each worker must always end up over 7.25 including tips.
QUEENS AREA NAILS
Seeking several large and small work experienced hands.
Base pay $120 plus tips and commissions.
Small work $70, plus tips and commissions.
Seeking part-time small and large work on weekends.
15 minutes two-way transport Flushing to Elmhurst provided.
PS: If the actual calculation where 70$ + f(X) instead of 70$ or f(X) the top opened would likely be far higher as random tips have a lot of a variation. With many waiters receiving at least one 100$ and a few 50$ tips over a few years. I know plenty of waiters that broke 250$ on a good night. But you see the same thing with raft guides, masuse, or bell hops.
As to the base pay argument, I have seen a lot of versions of this in sales, but almost always it's base pay of X or a commission structure with many people actually making the base pay for a while and then either being fired or moving on.
For the sake of argument we assuming the actual hours worked is only 8 and tips are frequent that might support 100$ as a minimum instead of average day. On the other hand if the average is 100$ and some days hit 150$ then you need several days @70$ to balanced out to 100$.
I accept both readings are reasonable based on wording, but even then 100$ per day in NYC at best supports minimum wage in the rest of the US.
Exploitation of the undocumented workforce is rampant and systemic. Blaming the individual for our country's structural ills is myopic fantasy.
If you don't like the laws that restrict who can come and work in your country, you are welcome to elect representatives that will change them. That, however, is hard as other citizens of your country may want to prevent that from happening. That's democracy.
Walking around telling people that calling X an X is 'xenophobic' and should be stopped because it doesn't agree with you is wrong.
This trend of casual libel against others, claiming intent and meaning that you can't possibly know, is worrying.
Prior to the 1880's, the US used to be a nation that accepted the many who would become the hands that raised America to its place on the world stage. Somehow, the spawn of those earlier waves think that they are the reason the US is great and seek to limit entrance of the minds and labor of others who come seeking that old dream of meritocracy.
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Prior to the late 1800s, we still had an untapped frontier, and immigration was in our interest. It was never a principle we committed to at all costs, despite what one poet might have thought. Now our own huddled masses are splitting a pie that isn't growing, and immigration is not so beneficial that it makes up for the overpopulation it causes (because few people have been emigrating).
Increase in population relate to increases in infrastructure, housing, services, global workforce competitiveness, military capabilities, and a myriad of other indirect and direct supporting features of societies that fare well historically. Do more with more instead of thinking you can always do more with less.
Increases in demand for food, services, schools, etc grows the pie. Sure, at some point, demand needs to be able to keep pace. But the US is not at that point.
It's easier to use the steamroller of global goodwill described by the statue poem than it is to simply sharpen the blades of dominance. Eventually, there's no metal left to sharpen and nations of billions will route a nation of millions.
You know that's just a poem on a statue, right, and not actually codified in law?
2010 US Census: population 308,745,538
The population increased 9.7% between 2000 and 2010.
Eventually a country must limit immigration. The alternative is the squalor of places like Haiti and Bangladesh.
Nope. It's just descriptive.