The manufacture of scandal used to be a tabloid specialty. But many people who pay attention to our paper of record will be surprised to learn that imputing scandal where none exists has also become a common feature of the way that The New York Times covers cultural matters. A case in point was “A Fight in the Attic,” a story about the Archives of American Art, an important repository of documents about the history of American art that began in the 1950s as a private enterprise but since 1970 has operated as a semi-autonomous branch of the Smithsonian Institution. Written by Judith H. Dobrzynski, the story appeared on the front page of the paper’s art section on December 8. The chief point at issue —the raison d’être for the piece—was the recent decision to close regional offices of the Archives in Boston and Detroit and to streamline operations at the New York office. The decision was made partly for fi ...

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