Rents in Leipzig are cheaper than rents in Manhattan! This
astonishing news is brought to you by the New York Times. But they still
manage to get it wrong:
What Mr. Amrhein is paying, per month per square foot, in Leipzig:
about 40 cents
What a similar gallery would cost, per month per square foot, in Chelsea:
$75
Er, no. Chelsea rents might be high, but they’re not $75 per square foot per
month. Actually, they’re $75 per square foot per year. The number they
should have used is $6.25: one twelfth of $75. Alternatively, they could have
given rent per square foot per year in Leipzig, which is $4.80.
The Times knows this, of course. There’s even a box in the print article (not
online) which gives accurate monthly rents for a 3,800 square-foot space: $23,750
in Chelsea, $1,470 in Leipzig. But no one seems to have stopped to think whether
the ratio of those two numbers was the same as the ratio between $75 and $0.40.
There’s arts journalists for you.
There should be a big sign as one enters every media location:
“Do the math!”
The business side knows; the editorial side should too.