Well, it has been an interesting day. My diary over at DailyKos which I cross posted here got picked up by Huffington Post. Others have been writing great stuff about this as well, in particular, Greg Sargent has this great post about the Times article.

Some folks have suggested to me that I write to the public editor of the New York Times about the article. I have sent my letter to him, which I am including below the fold.
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Thursday evening, according to the Associated Press, Sen. Edwards spoke in New York City about his “signature theme of ‘two Americas’ from his unsuccessful 2004 White House bid”. I am glad that the Associated Press covered the story about Sen. Edwards visit to New York and put his concern about poverty into a proper context instead of suggesting it is some sort of newer ploy to stay in the public eye.

However, the Leslie Wayne’s article, “In Aiding Poor, Edwards Built Bridge to 2008”, has a picture of the address at Cooper Union, but no reference to his speech. Instead it presents old and misleading information about Sen. Edwards campaign. Surely, The New York Times can do better than this.

Let’s do a brief analysis of the article. The article starts of with, “John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.”. It is always troubling to see an article start of with unsubstantiated assertions. Was this a problem that Sen. Edwards was concerned with? Is there any evidence to back this up? No, just sloppy journalism.

The next sentence, if anything, discredits the first. “Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million”. If he has $30 million of assets, how much of a problem is it really for him to “keep alive his public profile?”. That is about as close relevance to the story as I can find for that segment. How does it matter that Sen. Edwards has assets of nearly $30 million? Is there a hidden implication that people who are rich can’t be concerned about poverty? That appears to be the subtext.

This is a dangerous subtext to be promoting, unless, of course, the New York Times is about to do away with The Neediest Cases Fund.

Continuing on, the article states that Sen. Edwards created “a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty” as a solution to the unsubstantiated problem from the first paragraph. Now, we have lack of substantiation piled upon lack of substantiation, bordering upon what could justifiably be considered liable.

The article then describes Sen. Edwards as “the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising”. I am curious about how Ms. Wayne defines beneficiary. Since she refers to tax documents, there is an implication that Sen. Edwards received more money than anyone else. Will you make this information available? How much of the Center’s funds went directly to Sen. Edwards? How much went to other aspects, including travel?

More importantly, is that a valid definition of beneficiary? Many students who heard Sen. Edwards speak around the country consider themselves the beneficiaries of the organization, especially as they went on to form organizations on their college campuses or traveled to New Orleans to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. People in New Orleans, who saw these motivated students come to their town might even more rightly be considered the beneficiaries.

The article goes on to describe the organization as “a big part of a shadow political apparatus”. Was this truly ‘a shadow political apparatus’? Is it not possible for political leaders and their staff and supporters to be truly concerned about social issues? Will Ms. Wayne go on to suggest that Vice President Gore doesn’t care about Climate Change and released An Inconvenient Truth solely “to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign”? Perhaps she will suggest that Rep. Kucinich doesn’t really care about peace and is merely using his rhetoric to capture support of people opposed to the war in Iraq.

Likewise, Ms Wayne observes that some of Sen. Edwards travel was ‘to early primary states.’ If the amount of travel to early primary states has disproportionately high, rather than a stop at Dartmouth in addition stops at Yale and Harvard, it would be interesting to see that, but from what I’ve seen, most of his travel was to Ivy League schools in New England and large State universities in other parts of the country.

I was particularly surprised at Ms. Wayne’s comments about the nature of the contributions. “Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors”

My understanding is that the Center for Promise & Opportunity (CPO) was organized as a 501(c)4. 501(c)4 organizations are not for profit organizations for the promotion of social welfare and contributions are not tax deductible. My understanding is that the AARP, NRA and the Christian Coalition are all organized as 501(c)4s. How significant is it that CPO doesn’t have do disclose its donors, just like the AARP, NRA and Christian Coalition don’t have to disclose their donors? Or was Ms. Wayne’s use of significant really insignificant?

I could go on and on, although I suspect that I’ve spent enough time illustrating why this article is way below the standards of the New York Times. I do hope that that public ombudsman rectifies some of problems.