"Gen Next" Baffles NYT Mag

Graham — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:56:25 EDT

Wow, we must be pretty intriguing. The New York Times Magazine is the latest entry into a healthy industry of old people trying to come up with narratives about what makes young people tick. They seem to think they're special, as if every generation in the history of human society hadn't been baffled by their progeny.

The latest folly? Ann Hulbert today has some Pew survey data that charts young people (18 to 25) as more in favor of gay marriage than elders, but slightly less supportive of abortion than 50- to 64-year-olds.

Oops No. 1: She says "roughly a third" of we younguns "endorse making abortion generally available." That's versus, wait for it, 35 percent of older people. Wow, that's stark.
Oops No. 2: She uses this faulty data point (margin of error, anyone?) to conclude that "A hardheadedness, but also a high-mindedness and softheartedness, seems to be at work." You'd have to read the article, but trust me, there's no support for this odd statement
Oops No. 3: She hopes that maybe this means the 18-25 crowd will be more generous and help people in our lives. Well I hope we help the world too, but who said previous generations have never acted gallantly? Or is she too bitter to be a Boomer and not a member of the Greatest Generation to respect her elders.

Another Unsubstantiated Trend Piece

Dana Goldstein — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 11:28:48 EST

On Jan. 16, The New York Times reported on its front page that for the first time in history, more than half (51 percent) of American women were living without spouses. The story, supposedly based on a Times in-house analysis of U.S. census statistics, pissed me off because it was completely class-biased, billed as a good news sociological piece about middle aged divorcees liberated from nagging hubbies. The article completely ignored the staggering difficulty of being a working poor single mother. Anyhow, yesterday I happened upon the Times' public editor column, which I've been mostly ignoring since the staid Byron Calame took over last year from the feisty Daniel Okrent. But the headline--"Can a 15-Year Old Be a 'Woman Without a Spouse?'"--caught my attention. It turns out that the entire "51 percent" hook was a total misrepresentation, and relied upon including in the figure girls as young as 15 and students living in dorms, among other groups of young women who we wouldn't traditionally expect or encourage to be married. In any case, I don't know why Times editors get such hard-ons for these kinds of stretch-the-evidence trend pieces--especially when they have to do with the state of the American woman.

Did you hear that biodegradable weddings are totally in this season? Yeah, I read that in the Style section.

Posts with the tag The New York Times

"Gen Next" Baffles NYT Mag

Another Unsubstantiated Trend Piece