Have You Ever Noticed There Aren’t a Ton of Poor People in The New York Times

NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan addressed the paper’s coverage of poverty in her Saturday column. Her verdict: “The Times’s coverage of poverty strikes me as a paradox. It is both top-notch and too occasional. Improving that is not impossible.”

Specific complaints she addressed:
• The “special occasion quality” of poverty coverage (usually at the holidays);

• That “poverty coverage does not have the regularity or the inclusive tone of Times coverage on the opposite end of the affluence spectrum”;

• What the Times hasn’t covered (“If you read [NYC’s non-english language newspapers] and the New York Times metro coverage for a while, you’d think they were reporting on two entirely different cities.”)

Her suggestion for improving would be to assign a reporter or two to poverty coverage. Like the one who is currently assigned to the Hamptons. For Hamptons coverage. Of the Hamptons.

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