Posted on 05/15/2003 5:36:51 AM PDT by AbsoluteJustice
May 14 The case of Jayson Blair, the often-invisible man of American journalism, has fueled a new debate over two abiding American preoccupations news and race, and what we know and what we believe.
INTERVIEWS WITH black journalists suggest the complexity of the Blair episode. For some, the Blair affair points to how a newspapers hermetic, multilayered bureaucracy can lead to abuse by a talented but unscrupulous young reporter. Another view suggests its a problem properly addressed in the classroom before journalists even become journalists. But the ferocity with which some in the media have addressed it as a racial issue points to the continuing racial imbalance in American newsrooms and a continuing frustration among minority journalists. Blair, as media watchers know, resigned from the Times on May 1 after being found to have plagiarized or fabricated material in at least three dozen articles. The Times published a 7,500-word story Sunday detailing what it called frequent acts of journalistic fraud by Blair in reporting national stories from last October through April.
NATIONAL DIALOGUE In the article, the newspaper cited several reasons for not detecting the problems, including a lack of communication among editors and Blairs ability to cover his tracks. Whats followed has been a national dialogue on newsroom authority and the impact of race in journalism. True, the fallout from the Blair affair shouldnt be a racial issue, as one veteran journalist points out. It aint about affirmative action, said E.R. Shipp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Daily News and a 13-year veteran of the Times. Jayson Blair is not a black issue, its a young-journalist-trying-to-get-ahead-fast issue. Its bigger than Jayson Blair. I dont see this as an African-American issue. Its about working the system, and he seems to have known how to do it, Shipp said. Im personally offended that its [seen as] just being black and getting ahead. He got ahead because he could talk about food and Scotch with his editors in Times Square. Times columnist Bob Herbert thought much the same. Its easy to make it a racial situation, but its not, Herbert said Monday on CNNs Newsnight program. But you get used to that. Race is a big problem in this country and a lot of people like to see things in a racial context.
Agreeing with Herbert is another journalist, a former editor for an East Coast newspaper, who spoke on condition of anonymity. I think its absurd to tie this to race, she said. Had it been a woman, people wouldnt be saying, It was because shes a woman. There are thousands and thousands of black journalists whove never done anything like this. Hundreds of them have worked at The New York Times and have never done anything like it. Its a systemic problem. You dont get away with those things unless some of your editors are derelict. These are things that do not happen in newsrooms. But to insist that race isnt a factor in this humbling of an American journalistic icon is disingenuous. Like so many other facets of American life, the Blair affair is being viewed through the prism of color. Consider the energy with which some of the medias professional opinionators seemed all too ready to go beyond scrutiny of one mans actions. The idea of ethnic balance in the newsroom became a target of opportunity for columnists at the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, who said the Times brought the scandal on itself by focusing too much attention on ethnic diversity, and seeming to indulge in chastisement just short of schadenfreude. CNN, in unfortunate TV shorthand, called the episode the Times black eye as did Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher of The Times, in the Sunday story. In the furor over Blair, whats escaped naysayers about diversity outreach programs at U.S. media outlets is the fact of their necessity. A wakeup call told American media this 35 years ago, a call the media has addressed in fits and starts ever since. In 1967 the Kerner Commission report authorized by President Johnson in the wake of Americas urban rioting noted the complicity of the American media in the nations moving toward two societies, one black, one white separate and unequal. The media report and write from the standpoint of a white mans world, said the report, taking the media to task for repeatedly, if unconsciously, reflect[ing] the biases, the paternalism, the indifference of white America.
BRAVE NEW PLANTATION? Census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors found that the overall percentage of minority journalists in newsrooms inched higher incrementally, from 12.07 percent in 2002 to 12.53 percent in 2003. That figure, the society said, was still well below the percentage of minority residents in the United States more than 31 percent. The figure also lagged behind the societys own objective: achieving parity of newsroom percentage and population percentage by 2025. These minuscule gains have led some journalists to a throw-up-both-hands frustration that years ago led one of my number, in a moment of profound bitterness, to call the American newsroom the brave new plantation. Some sense how Blairs actions made them unwitting proxies for Blair, whose deceptions led the nations pre-eminent newspaper into what The Times itself called a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper. Claudia Perry, a reporter at the Newark Star-Ledger, said, What its going to do is this: For every editor who harbors racist suspicions about all minority employees, this is gasoline on that fire. Perry, a journalist for more than 20 years, came to the conclusion other minority journalists arrived at almost the moment the news about Blair broke: His transgression wasnt specific to black reporters. Anyone remember Stephen Glass? she asked.
SHATTERED GLASS, AND OTHERS Glass, a writer for The New Republic, performed his own Blair-like embroideries on the truth when he fabricated all or part of more than two dozen stories for that magazine, even conjuring Web sites and story sources. Cashiered in 1998, Glass is now in the process of rehabilitation. Hes reportedly seeking admission to the state bar in New York. And hes the author of The Fabulist, a fictionalized memoir of his experiences just out from Simon & Schuster. Sure as night follows day, the six-figure movie deal will not be far behind. Glass has had company over the years: Ruth Shalit, another young New Republic writer, admitted plagiarism in stories published in 1995 and 1996. Earlier this year, New York Times sportswriter Ira Berkow, in a story on celebrated North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith, was found to have borrowed language, without attribution, from a similar story by Bonnie DeSimone at the Chicago Tribune. In August 1998, Mike Barnicle resigned from The Boston Globe amid allegations of fabricating a column about two children sick with cancer this after he was caught borrowing jokes by George Carlin and after suspicions surfaced of his lifting work by A.J. Liebling without attribution. But there was a second act in his professional life: Barnicle now works as a commentator for MSNBC.
A DRIVE-BY ON TRUST The real danger is not what happens to journalists its what happens to peoples faith in journalism. black former East Coast newspaper editor Deception, it seems, is an equal opportunity employer. Blairs level of ambition and his ability to cut corners without being called to task by the editors really crosses color lines, Perry said. What Jayson Blair committed was more than just wrong. It was, in the words of The Washington Posts Terry Neal, an affront to journalism. But even more, even worse: With story after story, Blair undermined the bedrock that journalism is based on: facts and accuracy. With uncommon bravado and a novelists flair for invention, Jayson Blair committed a drive-by on the trust between Americas journalists and America itself. What remains is the need for a self-correction that goes beyond The New York Times, one that begins in the nations journalism schools and colleges. Hes hurt an entire generation of news consumers, said the East Coast editor who spoke on condition of anonymity. All of us we have to start talking to kids about ethics, integrity, how journalism is supposed to work. There are millions of minority journalists who just want to go out and report the truth, whats actually happening. The real danger is not what happens to journalists its what happens to peoples faith in journalism, she said. If you cant believe whats in The New York Times, why bother to read a newspaper? And that self-correction has to continue through the professional ranks of our craft so editors and reporters of long standing think better of castigating newsroom diversity programs that shouldnt be necessary, but are. When I became a reporter, back in the Jurassic period of the 1970s, I recall an editor telling me something thats stuck through the years: The truth is hard to come by. Just get the facts right. The truth of the damage Jayson Blair has caused to Americas confidence in its journalists will take time to be fully known. But some of that truth will come home in the future every time a minority job applicant at a newspaper gets that extra-skeptical second glance from the HR supervisor, whenever the inability to reach a reference on a resume is misread as a fabrication, the next time the automatic experts call into question the much-needed efforts to correct the way Americas newsrooms get the news and who they send to get it.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Casting aside the irritating use of the word "ain't" by a Pulitzer winner, let's examine the possibility that what is being said here might not only be true, but from a political standpoint, much more useful for our side.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if Jayson Blair had been the author of impeccably researched, fact filled, no possibility of retraction journalism, but with a distinct conservative bent, that he would have been fired long ago.
The NYT's mission has been for some time the purveyor of leftist dogma, and more recently had adopted the role of savior of the sinking ship that is today's Democratic Party predicament. They didn't keep him because he was black, they kept him because he towed the leftist line. No doubt Jayson Blair's character is flawed, but since when did that nullify his utility to the leftist cause?
So one could reasonably argue he had no actual formal training for his job. And, obviously he didn't need it.
You'd think the NY Times would just take their pick from Columbia School of Journalism graduating class. Don't they support affirmative action in admissions?
That's what's so puzzling about this. It's not like the NYT hired and promoted Blair because he was the first man on the moon and thus gave the NYT bragging rights. There are plenty of qualified minorities to choose from, but they picked a loser and continued to champion him. The only plausible explanation is that Jayson has pictures of Raines and a chicken in a compromising position.
Congressman Billybob
Claudia Perry, a reporter at the Newark Star-Ledger, said, "What it's going to do is this: For every editor who harbors racist
The reason they kept him is because he did the same thing the other Times reporters do.
It only became untenable when other people made an issue of it. In other words, he got caught.
Not by his editors mind you, by others who do not work for the times.
Nothing to do with being black.
Schadenfreude |
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