Sarah Maslin Nir

Former Times nightlife reporter Sarah Maslin Nir covered a modest anti-gun protest march over the Brooklyn Bridge for Tuesday's New York Times Metro section: "Marchers Urging Stricter Gun-Control Laws Take to the Brooklyn Bridge." The text box: "The fatal shootings of loved ones and others compel people to join a demonstration." A generous photo meant the story covered the entire top half of the page. Nir enthusiastically promoted the march on her Twitter feed as she covered it, proclaiming: "Million Mom March against guns built up steam. Now more than 200 marching across Brooklyn Bridge."

(Nir previously caused consternation with a November 2012 story faulting "white gentrifiers" committing the horrible crime of helping poor victims of Hurricane Sandy.) But she had no criticism of what was apparently a far more noble cause -- getting rid of guns.

No good deed goes unpunished. In her cynical front-page story Saturday, New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir wrote on what she called on her Twitter feed "race, class, and the hurricane," fishing for criticism of the wealthy whites who donated time and money and effort to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and providing some on her own. Yet it's the alleged victims of all that generosity that look thin-skinned and insensitive, in "Helping Hands Also Expose a New York Divide."