Reports about racial profiling at Barneys New York, the upscale store, have appeared in The Detroit News, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, USA Today and other newspapers throughout the nation and world, but not in the pages of The Times â€" despite the store's location in Manhattan.
The story involves high-profile figures like Jay Z, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the actor Robert Brown of the HBO series “Treme.†A second retail outlet, Macy's, has become part of the story.
Readers are wondering why The Times seems to be ignoring the situation, which has been picked up by the major wire services and published around the globe.
Marilyn Abbott wrote:
Other newspapers, including those abroad, have been reporting for several days about racism at New York upscale department stores.
The latest story found in The Daily News concerns the actor, Robert Brown of “Treme,†and how he was arrested at Macy's during the summer while purchasing a $1,000 watch for his mother. For the past several days, I have searched for the name Barneys, looked at the N.Y./Region, but found nothing regarding these stories.Why?
Another reader, Miriam Weiss of Astoria, Queens, summarized the story and noted that it has been covered in news outlets throughout the country, and as far away as Australia. But, she noted, “The Times apparently considers it not fit to print.†She, too, wants to know why.
I asked the Metro editor, Wendell Jamieson, about the lack of coverage, except for two single-sentence references in The Times's daily “New York Today†report.
Mr. Jamieson â€" no stranger to news that plays big in the tabloids - has worked at other New York City papers, including The Daily News, which has given the story a great deal of attention.
In an initial email, he responded as follows: “This is one of those cases where a competitor has made a campaign out of it. I can't figure a way for us to move the story forward. The suits are rather old and we don't know about their veracity.â€
I pressed him on these points. Even though it's a competitor's story, don't the readers of The Times deserve to know about it from their newspaper? If The Times is unsure of the veracity of the accusations, I wrote to him, isn't some digging in order here? And finally, I asked, is it really his thinking not to pursue the story at all?
He responded, noting that this is “the eternal question†in New York media.
This town is full of competitors chasing their own stories. Do we follow every one? We'd never get to do our own. In this case, you have an aggressive competitor - an honorable one, where I worked happily for five years - taking a series of lawsuits and turning them into a nonstop campaign. Such campaigns have long been tabloid staples. We've read the stories and haven't seen a way in for us. They have a he said, she said quality at the moment, and I'm not sure how we could get around that. We very well might write about it in the future, but there would have to be a smart way for us to move the story ahead, or a newsbreak - like a resignation or a major change in store policy.
My take: The Times doesn't have to turn this into a campaign or publish daily front-page articles about it. But the subject is a serious one â€" allegations of racial profiling â€" one that The Times has devoted plenty of its own resources to in the coverage of the city's “stop-and-frisk†police practices, which were successfully challenged in court.  And, while The Times can't cover every story, this one is newsworthy.
At the very least, The Times could publish a wire-service story, summarizing the situation. But it's also worthy of a deeper look. If there are concerns about the “he said, she said†aspect of what's been written elsewhere so far, why not get under the surface to report it fully and energetically?
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 28, 2013
An earlier version of this blog post misspelled the Metro editor's surname. It is Jamieson, not Jamiesen.
