NY Times Belatedly Publishes Letters Criticizing Anti-Charitable Deduction Article

It took the NY Times 11 days to do it, but yesterday it finally published two letters criticizing Stephanie Strom's astonishing Sept. 6 front-page hatchet job on tax deductions for charitable contributions.

One of those letters came from Mark Rosenthal, who has worked for more than 30 years as a curator for art institutions including the National Gallery, Guggenheim Museum and Menil Collection.

Rosenthal wrote:

I fear that your article will simply inspire useless and destructive debate in Congress, where art makes for a wonderfully diversionary political football. In the meantime, the many causes in need of help, along with art, will potentially be damaged by yet new misguided tax changes.

The other letter writer was Paul Nurse, president of Rockefeller University, who argued out that "private contributions...finance initiatives, like human embryonic stem cell research, that the government does not support."

It seems that, despite Strom's demurrals in a comment to the Chonicle of Philanthropy, I'm not the only one who sensed that she was down on tax deductible benefactions for cultural institutions, hospitals and stem cell research.

Now if only Clark Hoyt, the Times' public editor, would examine whether Strom's article meets NY Times standards for fairness and balance.