Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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Is there an editor at the NYT who insists that reporters arbitrarily throw in unneeded and inaccurate adjectives to make their articles longer? An article on President Obama’s trip to Argentina twice referred to the Free Trade Area of the Americas as a “free-trade” agreement. Most of the deal was about putting in place a common regulatory structure, not trade. It also increased some forms of protectionism in the forms of stronger and longer patents and copyright protection. The piece could have been shorter and more accurate if it had left out the word “free.”