The Cadillac passage, for example, relies on an Oklahoma woman who doesn’t actually own a Cadillac, but sees one across the street and assumes her neighbors are strapped because of it:
Not long ago, Elena Gamble would have looked at the Cadillac parked across the street from her modest home in Elk City, Okla., and felt a twinge of jealousy.“We live in a small town, and everybody looks at your clothes and what you drive and where you have your hair done,” said Ms. Gamble, who earns about $2,600 a month as a grievance counselor at a local prison.
Now, she and her husband—a prison guard who brings home $2,000 a month—are grappling with $10,000 in high-interest debt. They no longer go to the movies or out to eat, except occasionally to McDonald’s. They quit their Internet service. Their car was repossessed. “What we say now is, ‘If we can’t afford it, we can’t buy it,’ ” Ms. Gamble said.
And when she looks across the street at that Cadillac, her envy has been replaced by pity for the neighbor on the hook.
Here’s a reporting tip brought to you by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism: Cross the street and ask the neighbor what’s up with the car. We have no idea who they are and whether they can afford it. They might have been a better subject for the story, but we’ll never know.
As for the Gambles, notice that they did not have their Versace dinnerware repossessed, but their car, which some prison guards in places without subways use to get to work, and they cut spending by dropping Internet service, which is not really a frivolity these days, is it? The make and vintage of the car, by the way, is unidentified. It may be late-model Hummer, but I doubt that detail would have gone unmentioned.
Fran Barbaro, the subject of the article’s final anecdote, also provides clues that “envy” and an “extravagant mindset” aren’t the problems behind credit-card debt. Yes, she had art and a three-bedroom (wow) house, but she earned mid-six figures in the computer industry.
Her $200,000 personal debt is the result of “divorce, illness and motherhood,” including unidentified after-school programs that cost $25,000 a year and were apparently needed by her two boys.
The Times’s main point is fine with me. Its recycling of hackneyed myths is disappointing.
Great story. Economic coverage on the TV networks and in the NY Times consistently is consistently flawed in that it assumes an upper-middle-class perspective and shows little understanding of what middle-class and working-class people are experiencing. If one were to judge by these media sources, one would think the average American family has an income of $150,000 and has gone into debt to pay for ski vacations in Europe.
Posted by kweberlit
on Tue 5 Feb 2008 at 02:42 PM
The perspective of the NY Times management is not difficult to understand. Simply browse through the first several pages of Sect. A and you'll see ads for only the most extravagant items. Watches for thousands of dollars and up. Jewelry at multiple thousands for even simple earrings. It seems that Sulzberger and Keller have become completely out of touch with real life and the interests of the bulk of its readers. It is exeedingly
disappointing that it is only occasionally that a truly worthwhile bit of journalism finds its way into the pages of the NY Times. What more can be expected from a newspaper management that sees some benefit or balance in the hiring of William Kristol to soil its influential Op-Ed pages.
Posted by Jack
on Tue 5 Feb 2008 at 10:32 PM
While Dean Starkman makes some very interesting points with respect to the NY Times article; this story reminds me of the half empty/half full glass theory. The writer of the NY Times article went in with a lot of facts and numbers that the audience is bombarded with everyday from the 6am news to the 11pm version. We all know that Americans are falling into debt, this is not "breaking" news to anyone. Unless of course you're living under a rock. What's really interesting about this particular piece is that Starkman discusses some key points as to why some Americans are falling into debt in a manner that is rather "unconventional". Starkman begins by citing skyrocketing prices for education, health care, food and housing as the catalyst for this "debt trap". This is an unconventional method in my book because every other news source that I've either read or listened to has completely bypassed this method of logical reasoning. Secondly, she points out that credit cards are often used to pay for the "essentials" of everyday living, clearly her version of what's considered essentials varies greatly from that of the NY Times writer. By far the most entertaining part of this whole piece was when Dean Starkman challenged the NY Times writer's journalistic approach by not interviewing that "lady across the street with a Cadillac". She remains for all intents and purposes a flat character.
Posted by V11067
on Wed 13 Feb 2008 at 08:44 PM