A Daughter’s Search for an Invisible Presence

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When Diana Markosian was 7, she would stand outside her strange new home in Southern California and look toward the sky as each airplane passed overhead, wondering if her father would be on that plane. Or the next one.

But he never came at all.

Ms. Markosian, now 24, arrived in the United States from Russia in 1996 with her older brother. Her mother had taken them from Moscow, leaving their father behind. It had been a difficult marriage, and she wanted nothing to do with her mostly absent husband. She headed for Southern California because she had seen the television show “Santa Barbara,” which informed her picture of America. The reality was quite different, and she worked multiple jobs to provide for her children.

For many years, Ms. Markosian waited for her father to come to the United States and find her. Eventually, she stopped hoping and focused instead on identifying whatever defect in herself might have made her father stay away. She worked hard, excelled in school and earned a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University when she was 20.

“For so long, I thought my father wasn’t there because of me,” she said. “I always wanted to excel so that my father would notice me and he would care. I may not be honest about it, but a lot of what I do, I want to prove things to myself and that I belong here.”

She became an accomplished photographer at a young age. She returned to Moscow in 2010 to work as a freelance photographer, and her images from Chernobyl were featured on Lens in 2011.

Though she knew very little about her father, she set out to find him. Her brother visited from the United States, and together they went to Armenia to see her maternal grandparents. Her father lived in the same town.

“My brother remembered where he lived because my brother grew up in that home until he was about 4,” she said. “The first time we went there, I didn’t have a camera. This wasn’t a project. This was, ‘We need to meet our father.’ ”

Diana Markosian Ms. Markosian with her father as a child. “One of the only images of me and my father together. I saw it for the first time at age 23,” she said.

But their father didn’t recognize them. He refused to believe that they were who they claimed to be.

“I couldn’t believe that I had to convince my father that I was his child,” Ms. Markosian said. “I stated facts â€" when I was born, who my mother was.”

They stayed for a few hours but she was happy to leave as soon as possible. The following year, however, she returned and lived with her father for several months, trying to create a relationship. This time, she brought her camera and, as she slowly got to know him, began to photograph. It made for an interesting story â€" albeit one a little closer to the bone than her previous projects â€" but this was how she was used to experiencing, or not experiencing, her life.

This story, however, was different. She couldn’t remove herself. It wasn’t so much a story as it was a painful quest of self-exploration. In a sense, the photographs were merely a tool, a conveyance. She was documenting her human scars.

“Most of this was difficult for me, but it forced me to be there. It forced me,” she said. “This was about what I set out to do and who I wanted to love: my father.”

The story, with Ms. Markosian’s own text and more photos, will appear in The Times’s Sunday Review section on Father’s Day, and in an online feature.

At first, her father tried to connect. But he was often absent, even when he was home. He had a newborn daughter and a new family with whom he did not share a roof. He lived with and took care of his own father, who is now 90. On her second extended visit, Ms. Markosian realized that her hoped-for reconciliation wasn’t happening the way she had imagined. She began to feel anger, an emotion she wasn’t comfortable with.

She spent much of the next year with her father. Their interactions consumed her and left her feeling raw. Eventually, though, she was able to find an equilibrium, if not a close relationship.

“I realized that it had nothing to do with me,” she said. “For the first time, I felt like that was just who he is. It made it so much easier to forgive him, because I understood at that point that he didn’t understand, and he would never understand.”

It was not the resolution she had hoped for, but it was one she could live with.

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

The Times\'s Role in Anthony Weiner\'s Redemption Tour

When Anthony D. Weiner announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City recently - and rather oddly, in a video that surfaced online late at night and then disappeared - it was good to see the reporter David Halbfinger take a hard look at the video's assertions, fact-checking them aggressively and in real time.

For example, Mr. Halbfinger wrote about the candidate's claim of a health care overhaul, “Mr. Weiner's go-it-alone style in Congress â€" and his razor-sharp verbal bite â€" earned him hours of television airtime and a national following among liberals, but little else to show for it.”

The editorial writer Lawrence Downes also offered an incisive view in the “Taking Note” blog. “The half-life of disgrace seems to be getting shorter,” he wrote. “The new Anthony Weiner looks a lot like the old: full of bluster, full of ideas, full of himself.”

And the reporter Michael Barbaro wrote an analytical piece soon after, raising questions and describing the strange quality of the campaign thus far. With poll numbers showing “a deep distaste for his candidacy,” Mr. Weiner “remained holed up in his apartment” after his announcement. Mr. Barbaro wrote, “His campaign seemed determined that the warm images from the video be the ones that dominated the day.”

This kind of hard-nosed skepticism has sometimes been in short supply in recent weeks when it comes to the former congressman, who resigned in June 2011 after an online sex scandal, and in his run for New York City's top office.

It all began with a cover story in The New York Times Magazine on April 14. The cover image, combined with the headline's first-name intimacy, gave it something of a Brangelina vibe: “Huma and Anthony: The Private Life of a Former Power Couple.” Mr. Weiner's wife is Huma Abedin, a longtime top aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton and close friend of the Clinton family.

Joan G. Hauser, a reader, was one of many who objected. “I found the Sunday piece offensive because it was a blatant ‘testing of the water' for the benefit of Weiner.” Notably, the story was written not by one of The Times's political reporters but by a Vogue contributing editor.

Joseph Brennan of Somers, N.Y., wrote to me:

I am surprised and disappointed at the recent, generally positive, articles that have appeared about Anthony Weiner and his apparent attempt to re-establish himself as a significant political figure. Based on the descriptions in New York Times articles of his activities and influence I see no basis for the conclusion. Indeed, considering the lack of similar coverage in other reputable publications I can't escape the conclusion that The Times is single-handedly engineering his comeback.

I asked Hugo Lindgren, the editor of The Times Magazine, about the impression, by some readers, that the cover story was too easy on its subjects - a sweet stop on Mr. Weiner's redemption tour - and about the choice of its author.

He responded that, in retrospect, he did not believe the story was too soft.

We were very clear with our readers about the reason that Weiner and Abedin were cooperating with us, and our primary goal was to get them to speak as unguardedly as possible about the Twitter episode and its effect on them personally and professionally. We think we accomplished that. At the time, Weiner had not announced his run for mayor. Now that he has, the conversation has moved on to whether he is fit for the office, and our colleagues in the newsroom have done an excellent job of covering that.

I'd like to make one additional point about the writer of the story, Jonathan Van Meter. Jonathan is a highly respected magazine journalist who has written political profiles for Vogue and New York Magazine, and though he was acquainted with Abedin because he had written about the Clintons, he was not “cozy” with her or Weiner.

Whatever one thinks of the magazine cover story â€" some, no doubt, simply enjoyed it as a juicy read â€" the tone of The Times's coverage of Mr. Weiner has toughened up. That's a welcome development.

Sunday Column: Those in Poverty Go Wanting, Even in The Times

Too Little for So Many, Even in The Times

ART auctions or soup kitchens? The cost of a luxury loft in SoHo or the number of children in homeless shelters?

Newspaper people make decisions about what to cover and what to emphasize every day. They have finite resources - only so much space in the paper, only so many reporters - and they have to choose. In this context, one question I've been thinking about for several months is this: How well does The Times cover those who live in poverty and the news that affects them?

In March, I wrote a blog post about complaints from some advocates for the poor and other observers that poverty was getting short shrift in The Times. Watching closely, I soon noticed several good news articles and opinion pieces on this subject. No one can say that The Times ignores poverty.

But is it enough? Is it the right kind of coverage? Where are the gaps, and what is the big picture? These questions are important, particularly because there is an undeniable moral dimension. Within America's great affluence, nearly 50 million people live in poverty, defined as income below $23,550 for a family of four. Surely, the mission of the nation's greatest newspaper ought to include a deep concern about those 50 million.

Based on reading, interviewing and simply paying more attention, I've made some observations.

First, when The Times does write about poverty - whether in a special series or a long feature article - it usually does so with depth and intelligence. The amount and intensity of the coverage, however, may not be in proportion to the size of the problem. One in six Americans live in poverty, and it's worse for children: one in five. In New York City, it is commonplace to see men and women sleeping on the street. Among the city's 8 million residents, 1.5 million don't have enough to eat; a third of those are children.

Occasional coverage - no matter how excellent - doesn't get the job done.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in 52 major mainstream news outlets, including The Times, combined coverage of poverty amounted to far less than 1 percent of all front-page articles. The Times may do better than some, but given New York City's high poverty rate and The Times's special responsibility as the nation's dominant paper, with the most plentiful resources, there should be more. The Times has no metro or national reporter devoted solely to this subject, though many reporters' beats touch on it, and the columnist Ginia Bellafante writes about it frequently and well. Jason DeParle, a Washington reporter who focused much of his time last year on economic mobility, is on a yearlong leave to write a book.

Diane Nilan, an Illinois-based advocate for homeless families, is frustrated by The Times's “spotty interest”: “I ache for these people, but until the media make an issue of it, nothing will happen. It would be good to see The Times really take the lead in providing clarity and building compassion.”

Some advocates for the poor see another problem: News organizations, including The Times, tend to treat those in poverty as “the other,” a problem that is “over there.”

“It's isolated, it's in a silo, it's a problem that other people have,” Melissa Boteach of the Center for American Progress said in an interview. By contrast, The Times's thorough and sustained coverage of gay rights has a remarkable sense of inclusiveness and solidarity: across sections, from Styles to Sports to Metro, The Times movingly tells the stories of admirable individuals who are overcoming challenges.

Poor people really aren't “the other,” Ms. Boteach said. “People cycle in and out of poverty,” and, she said, in a given four-year period, one in three Americans will experience a spell of poverty.

But poverty coverage does not have the regularity or the inclusive tone of Times coverage on the opposite end of the affluence spectrum, like Paul Sullivan's business feature “Wealth Matters,” which is described as a column about “strategies that the wealthy use to manage their money and their overall well-being.”

Dan Froomkin, a journalist who wrote about the Pew study for Nieman Reports, also notes the “special occasion” quality of poverty coverage. During the charity-giving holiday season, or when a major reporting project comes to fruition, the focus is there. But it is not sustained.

Then there is what The Times does not cover. In a recent e-mail, Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, mentioned a stream of current local stories that The Times has not written about: Legal Services NYC went on strike; the city is trying to increase the number of summer meals for low-income children while they are out of school; the sequestration slashed federal spending on the city's soup kitchens and food pantries.

These stories and more, Mr. Berg notes, were covered in other New York City publications, including non-English-language newspapers like El Diario and Sing Tao Daily. “They cover these issues big time,” he said. “If you read them and the New York Times metro coverage for a while, you'd think they were reporting on two entirely different cities.”

He also notes, “There has not been a single story about the positions (or nonpositions) of people running for mayor on hunger, poverty, homelessness or inequality.”

Wendell Jamieson, the metro editor, said that Mr. Berg's complaints about stories that went without coverage missed an important reality: “There are eight million stories in the naked city, and for every one he mentioned that we didn't do, there are dozens of comparable stories, in scope and impact, that we did do.” One example, among many, was Joseph Berger's strong front-page investigative piece that showed how some landlords profit from homelessness.

The Times's coverage of poverty strikes me as a paradox. It is both top-notch and too occasional. Improving that is not impossible.

As an illustration of how quickly change can happen, consider this: Last month, The Times assigned a talented and prolific reporter, Jim Rutenberg, to cover the Hamptons for the summer. He made an immediate impact. In last Sunday's paper alone, one of his entertaining stories appeared on the front page, and another dominated the cover of Styles.

What if The Times decided to assign a few of its several hundred reporters to focus regularly and for a sustained period on poverty - the issues, the news and, especially, the people? The effect would be powerful.

Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com.  The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on June 2, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Too Little for So Many, Even in The Times.

The Plane That Did Not Crash, and Other News

After being away for much of the past week or so, I'm catching up with a few issues, along with some other items of interest.

1. A “Lives” piece in The Times Magazine on May 19, written by the contributor Noah Gallagher Shannon, describes the author's thoughts as his flight to Denver developed mechanical problems and was diverted to Philadelphia. The article's sub-headline reads, “The plane was about to crash. Now what?”

It's a gripping read. You feel Mr. Shannon's fear: “After they cut the electronics, the engines powered down to a hum. My body froze. In the quiet dark, the plane began to pitch and roll.” And you feel his relief, as the flight lands safely.

But after the article appeared, many of those who read it â€" particularly aviation experts - objected, saying that many of the details did not ring true, especially from a technical perspective. Some even suggested that it was made up of whole cloth.

James Fallows of The Atlantic wrote three blog posts in a matter of a few days about it. It got attention on Jim Romenesko's media Web site, and was a hot topic on Twitter. Writing in The Daily Beast, Clive Irving, a senior consulting editor at Condé Nast Traveler, specializing in aviation, called it “overwrought” and wished it had never been published. And many readers of The Times wrote to me about it, too.

The Times Magazine editor, Hugo Lindgren, defended the piece in a blog post. He confirmed that the flight had happened and provided details on the date, aircraft and the author's seat assignment. And he wrote, “He only reported what he heard and felt, which is consistent with the magazine's Lives page, where the account was published.”

Many readers and observers still aren't buying it. One who wrote to me, Alex Dering, in challenging some aspects of the recollection, expressed the doubts of many, and entertainingly so: “Every fiber of my editorially stunted and bitter soul tells me that the story is equal parts fact and homespun daydream.” How, for example, did the “plane without landing gear” manage to “kiss the ground like any other flight”?

After the furor, The Times investigated the article again and found it essentially accurate, but it's hard to fact-check thoughts, feelings and perceptions about a flight that happened nearly two years ago.

Like another popular Times feature, Modern Love, Lives is, by its nature, personal and subjective. But these memoir-style pieces must also be accurate. The standards shouldn't be those for fiction (or even some blended style that might be called “faction”), but those for Times journalism. Toward that end, Times editors have been rechecking the piece in recent days.

“Everything that we could check has checked out,” Philip B. Corbett, an associate managing editor, told me.

At the very least, the piece should have been edited and presented differently, making it clear that certain statements (“a plane without landing gear is like a struck match” and “the plane was about to crash”) were expressions of the writer's fears not statements of fact.  And the inclusion of some real-world details - like the date of the flight and the airline - would have grounded it in reality and kept it out of the clouds of controversy.

2. Jill Abramson, the executive editor, mentioned the concerns of Times readers in her appearance on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, in discussing the chilling effect on journalism of the Justice Department's leak prosecutions. She also explained why The Times chose not to attend Attorney General Eric Holder's off-the-record session with media leaders last week to discuss that issue. Her comments are worth catching up with for those who missed the program. A strong front-page article in The Times the same day by Peter Baker, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Weisman describes Mr. Holder's recent troubles, including the furor over the leak prosecutions. Journalistic subjects don't get much more important than this.

3. One of the stranger things that's been in The Times in recent days was a DealBook opinion piece by Jack Grubman, a former telecommunications analyst who, after settling a conflict-of-interest lawsuit in 2003 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, has been permanently barred from the industry. The piece carried a lengthy editor's note describing Mr. Grubman's background â€" a necessary piece of transparency â€" but there seemed no good reason for it to appear at all unless The Times is in the business of rehabilitating careers.

4. On a more positive note, I'll recommend to readers who may have missed it a terrific piece in last week's magazine - the deputy magazine editor Joel Lovell's profile of the Irish-born author Colum McCann. Mr. McCann is the author of the acclaimed novel, “Let the Great World Spin,” which many believe is the most important work of fiction to come out of the 9/11 era; his new novel is called “TransAtlantic.” The opening description of the tiny space in which the author writes is memorable, and the piece's ending - in which Mr. McCann discusses “radical empathy” and the possibility of hard-won optimism in the face of darkness - is moving.

5. And finally, speaking of magazine pieces, I was watching with great interest as the magazine's “The Scientific 7-Minute Workout” stayed and stayed on The Times's 10 most e-mailed list last month. I asked its author, Gretchen Reynolds, about its popularity.

“There is inexhaustible interest in getting fit as quickly and easily as possible,” she responded. “I would point out, though, that this particular workout isn't easy; it's fairly strenuous but it is very short and that is endlessly alluring. It was the brevity and simplicity of the workout that attracted me in the first place.” The simple illustration helped, too.

I asked Ms. Reynolds about correspondence I had had from readers who are also fitness instructors, complaining that this workout represents “gain with no pain” and that The Times should not have appeared to endorse it. She responded: “The science about the effectiveness of high-intensity interval training is well-established. People can certainly quibble about the exercises chosen or the order or whether someone should do multiple repetitions of the entire workout in order to become even more fit. But the article appeared in an American College of Sports Medicine-affiliated, scientific journal.” She said she prefers that a program be peer-reviewed and published before she writes about it.

As for “gain with no pain,” she said, not so fast. “I did the seven-minute workout before I suggested the idea,” Ms. Reynolds said. “It left me gasping and sore, and I'd thought that I was in pretty good shape.”

Who Does the Ethicist Think He Is?

Is it ethical for a student to submit the same paper in two college classes? That was the question posed to the Ethicist in last Sunday's Times Magazine. His answer, in brief, was yes. It may be lazy, he concluded, but it's not unethical.

The Ethicist, also known as Chuck Klosterman, wrote: “I don't think this is cheating. I wouldn't say it qualifies as ‘genius,' and it might get you expelled from some universities. Yet I can't isolate anything about this practice that harms other people, provides you with an unfair advantage or engenders an unjustified reward.”

A number of readers were quick to object. Michael J. Murray, an assistant professor at the University of Houston, described himself as “deeply disappointed and somewhat offended.” He said that at his university, this would be seen as a form of plagiarism, and certainly as academic dishonesty.

Another reader, Sandra Wilde of the City University of New York, suggested that by any measure - university rules or the common-sense use of one's conscience - Mr. Klosterman was off base.

“I often think he gets it wrong, but today's column crosses a line,” she wrote. “Academic integrity is an explicit set of expectations that provide ground rules for those at universities. A good rule for judging the ethics of your own behavior is whether you'd admit to it upfront, not whether you can do it well enough to get away with it.”

I asked Mr. Klosterman to explain his thinking beyond what he said in the column and to respond to the critics. He wrote:

I understand people's response to this, and it's not an unreasonable argument to make. But my opinion remains (essentially) identical to what I first wrote. Many of the people responding to this column are working from the position that this is unethical because it goes against whatever the university policy or honor code specifies. However, those specific policies don't factor into this determination. The honor code at Brigham Young University outlaws homosexual behavior - does this mean having a homosexual relationship at B.Y.U. is unethical, simply because a rule exists? Does it mean that it's not unethical to have a homosexual relationship at Utah State, but it somehow IS unethical the moment you transfer to Provo? There is a difference between something being unethical in a natural sense and something being unethical because an arbitrary ethics policy states that this is the case. I don't care what the University of Houston has decreed. Moreover, would the writer of that letter agree with my response if - for whatever reason - the University of Houston suddenly amended their policy? I don't think he/she would. This kind of contradiction happens all the time with this column. Legislation does not define ethical behavior. For example (as one commenter noted), it's illegal for a United States citizen to visit Cuba - but it's not remotely unethical. It's unlawful to drive 56 mph on a deserted state highway, but it's clearly not an unethical practice. This column is not titled “How to Avoid Jail” or “Is This Sanctioned?” It Is about how things ought to be - considered in a vacuum, but applied to practical living.

Many readers who write to me about the Ethicist - and I hear a lot of complaints, as does Mr. Klosterman - challenge his credentials. For example, Thomas D. Harter of La Crosse, Wis., objects to Mr. Klosterman's lack of credentials in ethics, a field in which Mr. Harter has expertise. “To allow him to dole out ‘advice' under this false designation is a shame, and, ironically, unethical,” he wrote.

I asked Mr. Klosterman about that, as well. He readily admits that he has no such degree and says that he finds the question a little bizarre.

As for what my “credentials” for this job are … that's always a strange question. The idea that I would need a degree in ethics to do this job is extremely strange. Is the assumption that all the film critics for The New York Times have film degrees? Do all the music critics have degrees in musicology? Would The Times not hire a business reporter because she didn't have a J-school degree and an entrepreneurial background? You're the public editor, and you seem good at your job - but do you have a degree in public policy? Perhaps you do, but I don't see how that would be essential. The wonderful thing about the Ethicist position is that no one is truly qualified and everyone is partly qualified. The experience of living, the experience of considering life's problems, the ongoing experience of trying to place an objective reality into an inherently subjective world - these are as close to “credentials” as I possess. It's the same reason this column gene rates so much response: It's not distant from anyone's life. When someone asks, “Well, what are your credentials for this position?” it's no different than if I responded to that question by saying, “Well, what are your credentials for asking that question?” Neither sentiment is meaningful. I'm not claiming to be more ethical than other people. I'm just a guy considering problems. (And if it matters, I have a degree in journalism.)

I asked him to elaborate on his background, and he wrote:

I grew up on a farm outside of Wyndmere, N.D. (very small town, fewer than 500 people). My dad was a farmer and my mom taught in a one-room schoolhouse before becoming a housewife. I have four sisters and two brothers (I'm the youngest of seven). I went to the University of North Dakota and graduated with a communications degree in 1994. I worked at the newspaper in Fargo (The Forum) from 1994 to 1998, covering popular culture. I then worked for The Akron Beacon Journal from 1998 to 2002 (initially as a pop culture reporter, then as the film critic, then as the music critic). My first book came out in 2001. Spin magazine hired me in May 2002, and I moved to New York. I was a columnist for Esquire for four years (roughly 2004 to 2008). I taught American Studies at the University of Leipzig in Germany during the summer of '08. I am currently a consultant and writer for Grantland, as well as having the job at The Times. My eighth book comes out this July.

Here's my take: Mr. Klosterman's column is always an interesting read in The Times. It's thought provoking, it often challenges conventional wisdom, and I'm sure it ignites conversations and arguments everywhere. (At last count, there were nearly 400 comments on the “two papers” column.) That's all good.

But calling him “the Ethicist,” with no other explanation, certainly does imply that he has some special expertise.

Granted, renaming the column “Just a Guy Considering Problems” is probably not quite catchy enough. But, as usual, I think transparency with the reader points the way. Some explanation each week - even a single line, in a light tone - of who Mr. Klosterman is and the intentions of the column would help readers know that this isn't the word from Mount Olympus. Nor is it intended to be. It's just one man's opinion.

Was Change in Obama Editorial a ‘Softening\' of The Times\'s Position?

The Times's editorial about President Obama's surveillance state was scathing. Some called it a “vivisection.” But a few hours after “President Obama's Dragnet” went online Thursday afternoon, one particularly notable sentence had been changed.

“The administration has now lost all credibility,” it read.

After the change was made, the sentence read, “The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.”

That's a far narrower construction. Was it, as Gawker said in a headline and many chimed in on Twitter and elsewhere, a secret softening of the Times's opinion?

In a phone interview Friday morning, Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, said no softening was intended.

“We thought it was obvious that we were talking about the administration's credibility on this particular issue - secrecy and surveillance,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “But it soon became obvious that some well-meaning people were not understanding that, so we thought that we should clarify it.”

He elaborated: “We think issue by issue. We didn't intend a blanket condemnation.”

He rejects the criticism of the change.

“We didn't soften it one iota from its original intent,” Mr. Rosenthal said. Other modifications were made to the online version of the editorial to reflect news as it happened through the day on a fast-moving story; that's not unusual.

Should the changed editorial have carried an editor's note to explain the modification? Mr. Rosenthal says no.

“If we had changed the intent of the editorial, it would have been dishonest not to say so,” he said. “But that wasn't the case. We don't have to run a note every time we make an update.”

Has that ever happened - an editor's note explaining a major reversal?

No, he said. “We tend to agree with our own opinions.”

My take: There's no question that the sentence, as edited, has a significantly different meaning. But I don't believe that the editorial board's original intention was to say that the administration no longer has any credibility on any issue. Nor do I believe that the board was frightened out of its convictions by reaction from the outside.

It was fine to clarify, but there is a legitimate concern about transparency. While a full editor's note - a pretty big deal, almost a mea culpa, in the newspaper world - was unnecessary, the editorial should have carried a tag that said “Updated,” as many online articles do. And a single sentence appended after the ending should have described the nature of the update. It's worth noting, though, that the editorial, as edited (or softened, or clarified, as you wish), is still a brutal takedown of the administration on this crucially important issue. Nothing changed about that.

Following Up on Poverty Coverage in The Times

I heard from many readers after I wrote last Sunday about The Times's coverage of poverty. I've rarely received more feedback on a column, and I appreciate the many thoughtful comments and e-mails.

A number of those who wrote noted that last year was the 50th anniversary of the publication of Michael Harrington's landmark book, “The Other America,” which was so influential in helping to raise awareness and create political action. And many urged The Times to play a leading role in taking on this pervasive problem with sustained coverage and a sense of urgency.

Michael Jonathan Grinfeld, an associate professor at the University of Missouri's journalism school, offered this provocative view:

I remember a time when “the war on poverty” was a more central issue challenging the American conscience than the recent “wars” we've fought. Each election cycle, I bemoan the fact that politicians focus on the “middle class,” while avoiding altogether the social, economic, political and psychological barriers that keep those suffering in poverty out of the public consciousness. It's a failure of our watchdog role as journalists that we let this happen.

Several readers offered more information, and I'd like to share some of it here:

1. Max Rose of Durham, N.C., wrote to inform me of a journal article that he and Frank R. Baumgartner, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published this year. It used the last 50 years of poverty coverage in The Times as its primary data. One finding was that, in the late 1960s, The Times wrote frequently - as often as three times a day - about poverty, “but after the War on Poverty, that coverage dipped rapidly.” In the past 40 years, it has continued a slow decline.

The study also found a huge shift, Mr. Rose said, from a focus on structural and economic problems to a focus on the personal characteristics of low-income people. There is, he wrote, “the potential for The Times to be a leader in changing the amount and the way we talk about poverty.”

2. A representative of The Nation, Caitlin Graf, wrote to point out the magazine's weekly feature by Greg Kaufmann, “This Week in Poverty.” The inaugural post, “This Week in Poverty: TANF Is Broken,” about the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, gives a sense of the feature's intended purpose - posted on Friday mornings, it is part of The Nation's “continuing coverage of an issue editor Katrina vanden Heuvel calls ‘the shame of our nation.'”

The blog, Ms. Graf says, keeps track of statistics that are too often ignored; provides updates on legislative efforts at the national, state and local levels; reports on the efforts of community activists; summarizes studies and proposals offered by antipoverty experts and organizations; highlights must-read articles, successful programs and opportunities for action; and busts myths.

3. While I was writing mostly about news coverage, I should have noted that, on the opinion side of The Times, two regular online features address economic inequality. They are “The Great Divide,” which is new, and “Fixes,” which has been around for several years. Both are well worth readers' time and are strong contributions to The Times's overall efforts on this subject.

Weiner Story Appears Briefly, Then Disappears, From The Times\'s Web Site

The Times has a strong policy against what it calls “unpublishing” articles. But there are occasional exceptions.

An article by Michael Barbaro on the women involved in the 2011 sexting scandal of Anthony D. Weiner, the New York City mayoral candidate and former congressman, appeared briefly on The Times's Web site Monday. Then it was taken down.

Its headline, “For Women in Weiner Scandal, Indignity Lingers,” still appears on the Web site with a “production note” that reads: An article was posted on this page inadvertently, before it was ready for publication.

In a story on Tuesday morning, the news site Politico wrote:

A Google News search shows the now-removed article about Weiner, who is running for mayor, started with the line, “Customers still taunt Lisa Weiss.”

“‘Talk dirty to me,' they joke. ‘We know you like it.' Colleagues still refuse to speak with her.”

“It was published inadvertently,” The Times's spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said, after Politico wrote about it Tuesday. (The New York Observer also had an early report.)

Ms. Murphy would not elaborate on what happened.

From what I've been able to piece together, there was a miscommunication among Times editors. Some thought the article was ready to go, and sent it on through the editorial production cycle. At least one other editor - higher up on the food chain - disagreed about its readiness and did not intend it to be published, at least not at that point. (I've commented previously here on The Times's coverage of Mr. Weiner's mayoral campaign.)

A check on Tuesday morning of NewsDiffs, a Web site that captures versions of stories for comparison purposes, did not turn up the article.

Will the article â€" or some version of it - appear soon, or even eventually?

“We don't discuss stories in advance of publication,” Ms. Murphy said.

I asked the politics editor, Carolyn Ryan, and Mr. Barbaro to comment; both referred questions to Ms. Murphy.

Such are the hazards of digital misdirection, as Mr. Weiner found out. It couldn't have happened to a more appropriate story.