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Pictures of the Day: Egypt and Elsewhere

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Photos from Egypt, Syria, Mali and Bulgaria.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.



Pictures of the Day: Egypt and Elsewhere

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Photos from Egypt, Syria, Mali and Bulgaria.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.



A Column About Poverty Programs Creates a Stir and Raises Legitimate Questions

The columnist Nicholas D. Kristof has done some extraordinary journalistic work in recent years, like drawing back the veil on the atrocities in Darfur and raising the public’s consciousness about human sex trafficking worldwide.

But a column closer to home - although it raised important questions about the effectiveness of government-financed programs for the poor and disabled â€" would have benefited from more rigorous reporting.

In December, Mr. Kristof wrote about children and poverty programs in Appalachian Kentucky, where there is a high poverty and illiteracy rate. One of his assertions, and certainly the most startling, was that some parents were removing their children from literacy programs for fear that they would no longer be eligible for federal aid in theform of Supplemental Security Income.

The column began: “This is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.”

He suggests that some S.S.I. funding should be redirected, since the current setup may help trap children in poverty at an early age.

Since the column appeared, many advocates for the poor and disabled have criticized it harshly, questioning its statistics, sourcing and conclusions. I met with one of those advocates, Jonathan Stein, in December and asked him for a memo summarizing his objections.

After I brought this memo to Mr. Kristof’s attention, he offered to address the responses to his column in a post on his On t! he Ground blog,. and did so last week. He linked to various pieces of criticism; he published Mr. Stein’s lengthy memo in full and responded to it, point by point. (That memo was written with Rebecca Vallas, also with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, where Mr. Stein is counsel.) Mr. Kristof then refuted the criticisms and defended his own reporting, characterizing it as thorough.

Mr. Kristof does plenty of shoe-leather reporting for his columns. He travels widely - to some of the most dangerous parts of the world â€" and talks with many sources.

But in this case, he did not talk to the primary sources, the parents of poor and developmentally disabled children. Given the provocative nature of his opening statement and its importance in setting up the column’s thesis, it should have been completely solid.

One reader, in the comments under last week’s follow-up blog, addressed Mr. Kristof: “You do not seem to have talked to an of the accused parent(s) or their children directly. This is like writing ‘Half the Sky’ without interviewing any poor world women.” (The reference is to Mr. Kristof’s 2010 book, written with his wife, the former Times reporter Sheryl WuDunn, about the global oppression of women.)

Given Mr. Kristof’s high profile as a two-time Pulitzer winner and the influence of The Times’s opinion pages, a column like this can have far-reaching effects - influencing government financing and legislation. (Full disclosure: I was the chairwoman of the Pulitzer commentary jury in 2006 when Mr. Kristof deservedly won that award, largely for his work in Africa.)

Until this point, I have not commented on the column or the reaction, as it played out in letters to the editor, M! r. Kristo! f’s blog and critical pieces outside The Times.

But now, having read all the material - points and counterpoints, objections and defenses â€" I believe that some of the column’s assertions were based on too little direct evidence or used statistical information that is, at the very least, open to interpretation.

I’m glad to see attention paid to poverty in America, a topic ignored during the presidential campaign. And Mr. Kristof, who has earned so much trust among thoughtful readers who care about the underprivileged, may be the ideal columnist to ask if existing programs to help them are the right ones.

That’s all the more reason that what he says should be nailed down tight.



A Column About Poverty Programs Creates a Stir and Raises Legitimate Questions

The columnist Nicholas D. Kristof has done some extraordinary journalistic work in recent years, like drawing back the veil on the atrocities in Darfur and raising the public’s consciousness about human sex trafficking worldwide.

But a column closer to home - although it raised important questions about the effectiveness of government-financed programs for the poor and disabled â€" would have benefited from more rigorous reporting.

In December, Mr. Kristof wrote about children and poverty programs in Appalachian Kentucky, where there is a high poverty and illiteracy rate. One of his assertions, and certainly the most startling, was that some parents were removing their children from literacy programs for fear that they would no longer be eligible for federal aid in theform of Supplemental Security Income.

The column began: “This is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.”

He suggests that some S.S.I. funding should be redirected, since the current setup may help trap children in poverty at an early age.

Since the column appeared, many advocates for the poor and disabled have criticized it harshly, questioning its statistics, sourcing and conclusions. I met with one of those advocates, Jonathan Stein, in December and asked him for a memo summarizing his objections.

After I brought this memo to Mr. Kristof’s attention, he offered to address the responses to his column in a post on his On t! he Ground blog,. and did so last week. He linked to various pieces of criticism; he published Mr. Stein’s lengthy memo in full and responded to it, point by point. (That memo was written with Rebecca Vallas, also with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, where Mr. Stein is counsel.) Mr. Kristof then refuted the criticisms and defended his own reporting, characterizing it as thorough.

Mr. Kristof does plenty of shoe-leather reporting for his columns. He travels widely - to some of the most dangerous parts of the world â€" and talks with many sources.

But in this case, he did not talk to the primary sources, the parents of poor and developmentally disabled children. Given the provocative nature of his opening statement and its importance in setting up the column’s thesis, it should have been completely solid.

One reader, in the comments under last week’s follow-up blog, addressed Mr. Kristof: “You do not seem to have talked to an of the accused parent(s) or their children directly. This is like writing ‘Half the Sky’ without interviewing any poor world women.” (The reference is to Mr. Kristof’s 2010 book, written with his wife, the former Times reporter Sheryl WuDunn, about the global oppression of women.)

Given Mr. Kristof’s high profile as a two-time Pulitzer winner and the influence of The Times’s opinion pages, a column like this can have far-reaching effects - influencing government financing and legislation. (Full disclosure: I was the chairwoman of the Pulitzer commentary jury in 2006 when Mr. Kristof deservedly won that award, largely for his work in Africa.)

Until this point, I have not commented on the column or the reaction, as it played out in letters to the editor, M! r. Kristo! f’s blog and critical pieces outside The Times.

But now, having read all the material - points and counterpoints, objections and defenses â€" I believe that some of the column’s assertions were based on too little direct evidence or used statistical information that is, at the very least, open to interpretation.

I’m glad to see attention paid to poverty in America, a topic ignored during the presidential campaign. And Mr. Kristof, who has earned so much trust among thoughtful readers who care about the underprivileged, may be the ideal columnist to ask if existing programs to help them are the right ones.

That’s all the more reason that what he says should be nailed down tight.



Redefining Home on the Virginia Peninsula

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Matt Eich was raised in the Tidewater area of the Virginia Peninsula, a series of seven cities and smaller shore communities separated by water yet connected by bridges, tunnels and the presence of many large United States military ases.

The military dominates the economy and the politics tend to be conservative. Traces of over 400 years of history can be seen in the remnants of the Jamestown settlement and in the new old houses of Colonial Williamsburg.

But, truth be told, Mr. Eich never felt particularly connected to the area growing up. He experienced it as a never-ending series of strip malls punctuated by a few places of profound natural beauty.

“Outside of some rural areas and a few pockets of the cities, my perception was it that it was pretty lackluster place,” Mr. Eich said.

After finishing his degree in photojournalism at Ohio University, Mr. Eich returned to home in 2009, not so much out of a yearning for the place but because of practical concerns. At 22, Mr. Eich was married with a 1-year-old daughter, and his parents and all three of his siblings were in the area.

DESCRIPTIONMatt Eich The photographer’s daughter, Meira Eich, 4 months old, nuzzled with her mother, Melissa Eich, 25.

Living there would allow him to pursue his peripatetic career as a photographer while his wife, Melissa, studied for a graduate degree in speech pathology. This year they had another daughter.

So far, Mr. Eich’s career has gone well. He became known as a member of the Luceo collective â€" which he left last summer â€" and has been fairly successful in landing editorial assignments and winning grants to fund his projects.

He pursued a long-term project in Greenwood, Miss., “Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town,” raising money for it on the photography crowd financing platform, emphas.is.

He is now using emphasis again to pay for an exhibition of “The Seven Cities” at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach this fall.

The exhibit will showcase his documentary photographs of the Tidewater community and its military influence, interspersed with photos of his family. “I’m trying to put my family’s narratives into the context of the community,” Mr. Eich said. “I’m also photographing my wife and daughters and parents and siblings and friends we grew up with.”

As he works on decoding the area in which he grew up and defining his own relationship to home, he is also trying to determine whether there is a place in photography for someone to do personal work, have a career and support a family.

Rapid changes in the photography industry have made it impossible to predict if one year of editorial assignment bounty will be followed by another of fam! ine. It i! s hard to plan a career. Like many photographers, Mr. Eich continually struggles to come up with reliable models to tame the turbulent economic forces.

DESCRIPTIONMatt Eich A wounded veteran and a returning sailor shared a kiss at the final homecoming of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

In planning “The Seven Cities,” he endeavored to put together a meaningful project that would keep him near his wife and daughters. He carefully drew up a budget of $70,000 to cover printing and framing, pay a collaborator to gather audio, produce sound installations and build an interactive Web site where community members could upload their stories. It would also pay Mr. Eich a modest amount.

The result so far

“I haven’t come up with a cent for any of it,” he said.

Mr. Eich di receive a $3000 Short Grant from the National Press Photographers Association, which paid for two weeks of shooting last year. This July, he will participate in a Lightwork artist residency in Syracuse, where he will print the work and edit with the photo editors Mike Davis and Deb Davis.

The question facing him and other young photographers in these unpredictable times is how to make pursuing personal work financially sustainable. As he seeks to find solutions he admits, “I don’t have an answer to that.”

“I can tell you that every time I go to a photo conference some National Geographic guy is there saying he’s never struggled to get assignments â€" they just fell into his lap,” Mr. Eich said. “Well, that sounds like a lovely world to live in, but that’s not the world I’ve been given, so I have to figure out how to work with what I got.”

Matt Eich A backyard in Portsmouth, Va.

Follow @MattEichPhoto, @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.



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