NYT Practices a Little NARAL Camouflage

In Friday's New York Times, reporter Susan Dominus describes division in the feminist movement over who to support in the Democratic presidential primaries. Dominus describes two types: the hip, young, flirty feminist who's uncommitted, exemplified by Jessica Valenti, the founder of the blog Feministing (the one with headlines like "What's your butt's ethnicity?"); and the dour, old-school feminist who says support Hillary or you're sexist, exemplified by Marcia Pappas, the president of the New York chapter of NOW.

It's an interesting piece, written with obvious sympathy for feminism, and the newspaper's sympathy extends to covering up Jessica Valenti's other blog venture: she's paid by NARAL Pro-Choice America to run its "Bush v. Choice" blog (see that "About Jessica" link?). The closest the Times comes to exploring what pays Valenti's bills is this sentence:

What she still doesn't have is money. After almost four years of television appearances, magazine interviews, even minor celebrity, Ms. Valenti still runs the Web site on the side, working as a freelance writer to get by.

Perhaps "freelance blogger" or "freelance writer and blogger" would have been more precise and descriptive. Noting Valenti's professional ties might also explain to the reader why she's uncommitted instead of explicitly favoring Mrs. Clinton or Obama.

Here's one way Valenti totally ruins her hip and young and never-Old-School profile. She's guest-blogging right about now for The Nation, that fusty old hard-left rag.