New Questions on Nail Salon Investigation, and a Times Response

The New York Times’s series on worker abuse at New York City’s nail salons hit big when it was published earlier this year.

Accompanied by a huge social media campaign, it resulted in almost immediate action from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to crack down on the salons for underpaying and mistreating workers, usually immigrant women.The series has won praise but also drew criticism in The New York Review of Books from Richard Bernstein, a well-respected former Times reporter, who owns salons with his wife.

He said its methodology was flawed, and its conclusions not recognizable to him as an insider. Top Times editors issued a strong point-by-pointresponse.