At 06:56 AM 8/31/2005, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Barbara Ehrenreich had an excellent critique of this series on NPR's On
the Media this summer (perhaps on their website somewhere?).
Basically, she suggested it explored class as just another form of
'diversity'. She claimed the LA Times' series, almost simultaneous with
this one, was much better.
Steven Sherman
Here's the link to the transcript of the
interview: http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_070805_class.html
Her basic point was that the LA Times' series was too short but the most
analytical of the three, the NY Times had rich detail but little or no
analysis (as I tell my students, that's the difference between sociology
and good journalism), and the Wall Street Journal's series feell in
between. Ah well, at least I can tell my students that if all three of
these papers did a series on class this year, social stratification isn't a
matter of idle intellectual curiosity. As luck would have it, my strat
class is offered this semester, so I'm trying to determine how much of the
newspaper series I want students to read. While Ehrenreich is certainly
making an important point, the "rich detail" of the NY Times series is
exactly the kind of thing that works well in sucking students into
discussions that DO venture into analytic waters.
But I really would like to see the LA Times articles, and I can't seem to
find them on the LAT's site. Anybody help with that?
Gerry Grzyb
