The rectification of paragraph structure

Members of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra performing at a construction site in the city's Metro, August 2014.

A cogent example of how good reporting gets mowed under by obnoxious editorial practice, in which it's not a story unless it's some kind of drama of personal conflict, from today's Times.

Lede: Who's winning?

The new Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and his leftist Syriza party were elected last month as insurgents, promising to end austerity in Greece and inspire a broader backlash across Europe. But to avoid a banking crisis and keep the loan money flowing, Mr. Tsipras discarded his confrontational stance and is now committed to pushing through structural reforms and tougher tax collections: positions long advocated by European creditors.

In turn, Mr. Tsipras is claiming a measure of victory, symbolic and tangible, by forcing Europe to revise, if modestly, the terms of the bailout program and winning some commitments to address the “humanitarian crisis” created by austerity.

So if you read the first few paragraphs you understand that there's this war between the Greek hippies and the EU authorities and the Greeks have been defeated, forced to back down from "confrontation" and do what the creditors "advocate", although the prime minister has been able to "claim" some "modest" victory, partly "symbolic", of his own, presumably with an eye to the local opinion polls.

The thing that got to me here was the presentation of "tougher tax collections" as a big concession from Syriza to the Germans. But it was a central part of the party's campaign! They were the true leftist party not bought out by Greece's wicked wealthy class and committed to making to making the rich pay their fair share! What the Germans wanted Tsipras not to do was to restore the country's Euro-shattered social safety net with money that the fearful German bankers needed for their fragile sense of security (what they really want to do with it is build a deck out behind the house overlooking the moral hazard).

Indeed, if you read on, because the Times is so great in spite of everything, you have the opportunity to learn about an alternative reality in which these facts are recognized.

Reality: What's happening?

Some analysts note that the Greek leftists and the European creditors have fairly broad areas where they can agree, especially in cracking down on tax evasion by the wealthy and on corruption. Syriza was elected without the support of many of Greece’s most powerful business networks, and the party had vowed before the elections to close loopholes and shift the tax burden away from the poor toward the rich. Unlike past Greek governments, which often had ties to these elites, Syriza is better positioned to make real change, analysts say. 

“The most important challenge, a make-it-or-break-it thing, is their ability to deliver on tax evasion, corruption and smuggling of tobacco and oil,” said George Pagoulatos, a political analyst and professor at Athens University. “If they manage to make a difference on that, they will be able to raise the revenues that will allow them to fund their social programs and also be financially sound at the same time.”

"Some analysts" have this eccentric idea that the central story is what happens to the Greek people rather than what happens to Tsipras's and Merkel's respective poll standings, and this peculiar perspective gives you a totally different narrative in which Tsipras is quickly accomplishing exactly what he publicly proposed. But that's just for all you nerds. Cool kids don't need to know.

Update: John Quiggin at Crooked Timber agrees that if anyone may be said to have "blinked" it is the Troika of European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund, so if I may say so I'm in some pretty distinguished company. It looks like German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble couldn't believe Syriza had meant what it said in the campaign, just like your American journalists, and was kind of blindsided by this unexpected development.