{"id":546,"date":"2004-01-19T02:13:49","date_gmt":"2004-01-19T10:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/01\/19\/how-dare-the-times-report-a-story\/"},"modified":"2004-01-19T02:13:49","modified_gmt":"2004-01-19T10:13:49","slug":"how-dare-the-times-report-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=546","title":{"rendered":"How dare the Times report a story!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The folks over at MarriageMovement.org<\/a> are angry at the New York Times<\/i>, devoting post after post to criticizing its coverage. Why? Because the Times <\/i>article on the Bush administration’s Marriage Initiative<\/a> included this passage:<\/p>\n

The [Bush administration] officials said they believed that the measure was especially timely because they were facing pressure from conservatives eager to see the federal government defend traditional marriage, after a decision by the highest court in Massachusetts. The court ruled in November that gay couples had a right to marry under the state’s Constitution.<\/p>\n

“This is a way for the president to address the concerns of conservatives and to solidify his conservative base,” a presidential adviser said.<\/p><\/div>\n

Elizabeth Marquardt speculates<\/a> that maybe no administration officials actually said that – maybe the Times just made the whole thing up (although Elizabeth admits the attribution is “believable.”) Tom Sylvester declares <\/a>that it was probably taken out of context by the Times<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Neither of them seem to find it remarkable to accuse the Times <\/i>of fictionalizing news stories without the slightest bit of evidence; call me old-fashioned, but I think it’s nice to present some evidence that someone has actually lied when accusing them of lying.<\/p>\n

Here’s my theory: probably administration officials said what the Times <\/i>claimed they said. And the Times reported it because it is newsworthy, and to not include the administration quotes would have been irresponsible for any news organization. And other papers picked up on the story because it is newsworthy.<\/p>\n

I know that’s not as much fun as made-up conspiracies (the Times <\/i>may have made up the quotes! No, wait, they took them out of context!), but in this case the duller story is probably the more truthful.<\/p>\n

As for the marriage initiative itself, the Bush administration is making it sound like a very humble proposal indeed.<\/p>\n

Administration officials said their goal was “healthy marriage,” not marriage for its own sake.<\/p>\n

“We know this is a sensitive area,” Dr. Horn said. “We don’t want to come in with a heavy hand. All services will be voluntary. We want to help couples, especially low-income couples, manage conflict in healthy ways. We know how to teach problem-solving, negotiation and listening skills. This initiative will not force anyone to get or stay married. The last thing we’d want is to increase the rate of domestic violence against women.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Dr. Horn (who, in a previous stage of his career, was an extremist “father’s rights” advocate) gives the impression that this initiative merely provides to poor folks the marriage counseling that wealthier folks have been able to afford all along. If that’s what it does, then I have no problem with the marriage initiative. I’m not convinced it will do much good, but maybe I’m wrong about that, and it won’t hurt to try. If the result is that more people who would mutually like to stay married are able to keep their marriages intact, then hooray.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I don’t find either Mr. Horn or the Bush administration trustworthy; feminist and liberal groups will obviously have to monitor how the program is actually implemented to see if it’s as harmless as Horn claims.<\/p>\n

Of course, I also suspect that the money could be spent in more effective ways. From a different Times <\/i>article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Other researchers, like Leslie J. Brett, the executive director of the Connecticut’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, have argued that other influences, like work hours, the availability of child care and access to health care, are set up to favor two-parent nuclear families, and that therefore families that don’t fit that model have a harder time.<\/p>\n

“In order to improve the outcomes for families that do not fit the ‘ideal’ type,” Ms. Brett wrote in a paper published last January, “we can seek to change and broaden the systems to support more types of families, rather than seeking to change the families themselves.”<\/p>\n

Still, most researchers concede that low-income people are no less interested in healthy, loving marriages than anyone else. As long as the marriage initiative is part of a constellation of programs that address other aspects of poverty, like jobs, education and proper health care, Professor Lichter said, “what’s wrong with the government helping them reach those aspirations?”<\/p><\/div>\n

If I were president, Ms. Brett’s approach would be emphasized and funded. But face it: that kind of feminist reform, dedicated to helping all women, not just women who want to get married, will not happen under this president and this congress. In the meanwhile, since really good policies are unavailable, let’s take what we can get..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The folks over at MarriageMovement.org are angry at the New York Times, devoting post after post to criticizing its coverage. Why? Because the Times article on the Bush administration’s Marriage Initiative included this passage: The [Bush administration] officials said they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}