And in my homeland.
[New York Times TV advertisement (2000)]
A couple of years ago the New York Times ran a most annoying campaign, featuring “real” people telling the camera (and the nice people at home) what they liked about the Times. All of it was pat and stultifying, but the worst was a young man of indeterminate origin explaining that the NYT lets him know what’s happening in his hometown of New York, and “in [his] homeland.” The most insulting thing about this was his indeterminate nationality – he was swarthy, with short dark hair and an earnest look. Entirely unplaceable. His “homeland” could feasibly have been from Spain to India to Central America to the Phillipines to Morocco and many places in between. Probably it was the NYT’s feckless sidestepping of the homeland issue which led to repeating this in moments of cynicism and sarcasm.
– Brent Cox (May 20, 2002)