New York Times reporter Jayson Blair resigned after being caught plagiarizing. It turned out that he had committed a great many acts of fraud over a period of several years. To their credit, the Times laid them out in this lengthy article.
This incident raises a number of issues. One is affirmative action. Blair was taken on with less than normal qualifications because he was a minority. Perhaps the Times gave him more leeway for the same reason. Was he given too much leeway? Are other minority reporters given too much leeway? Or, was Blair treated more harshly because he was a minority?
A second question is whether others at the Times should be blamed for not catching his errors sooner. He did make an enormous number of significant fabrications. Also, are there specific steps that should be taken by the Times and other media better to guard against this sort of thing.
A broader question is whether affirmative action has harmed the quality of American journalism. That was the theme of a National Press Club Award winning book, William McGowan’s Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism. Should the media focus less on diversity and more on quality? Is there a way to attain diversity without sacrificing quality?
(1) Yes, the media should focus more on quality than diversity. Oh wait, you tricked me into it. Let me rephrase it: The media should focus on quality.
(2) Yes, diversity can be “attained” without sacrificing quality. He was caught, wasn’t he?
(Is your question #2 suggesting that the only way diversity can be attained is if quality is sacrificed? IOW, people from minorities lack competence?)
<A broader question is whether affirmative action has harmed the quality of American journalism. That was the theme of a National Press Club Award winning book, William McGowan’s Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism.>
Well, this one incident is not enough to come to any judgement on whether Affirmative Action has corrupted Journalism. As a statistician, you would surely agree on that point. May be you can present a rigorous defense of your thesis? Given that anyone can publish a controversial book (and in this climate, books that support conservative positions are popular regardless of their content) I will also need more information on the content of the book you spoke about.
Finally, when Fox reported this story, they quoted Howard Raines from the time of Blair’s appointment when he remarked that the appointment will strengthen the NYT. If that isn’t biased reporting, what is? Of course any hirer will praise an incoming hiree!
You and I agree. Melissa Block of National Public Radio found a quote from [NYT Executive Editor] Howell Raines boasting about the New York Times’ affirmative action program to the National Association of Black Journalists two years ago. After specifically mentioning Jayson Blair as an example of the Times’ successful recruiting efforts, Raines said:
So, if we take Raines at his word, diversity is more important to him than a better staff.
I think diversity can be attained without sacrificing quality, but it’s not always easy. The US military seems to have a done a super job in this area. OTOH finally catching Blair after any number of horrendous frauds isn’t anything to boast about. He was hired with sub-standard qualifications. To me, that suggests that he should have been monitored extra-closely.
I think diverity can be attained while maintaining quality. However, the Times has said publicly that Blair was hired with a lesser record because of his minority status. Maybe the Times tried to attain diversity too quickly. (That was a widespread problem in journalism, according to McGowan.)
McGowan’s book covers a number of incidents in detail. I receommend it.
I agree that this may have been an unfair shot at Raines. However, it may tell us something. Maybe Raines’s enthusiasm over a black reporter contributed to the failure of the Times to apply normal standards. Also, under Raines’s leadership, the Times has taken so many unfair shots at conservatives that I cannot feel sorry for him.
It’s quite alright for The American Spectator to accuse former President Clinton of various atrocities, ranging from fathering a black woman’s child, to having upwards of 60 people murdered, and they never get called on any of it, but when the NYTimes has an analysis article which is critical of a Bush policy or an editorial which criticizes Trent Lott for his remarks at Strom Thurmond’s celebration are somehow unfair???!!!
As for Blair, while what he did goes against many of the ethics of journalism, I would hardly characterize what he did as ahorrendous fraud.
The problem is this: Blair started out at the Times as an intern straight out of college, and then quite soon was moved up to reporter.
That’s outrageous.
He didn’t take the usual and time honored path of journalists, which is to start working for a small paper and learn exactly what it means to be a reporter, and if your writing is good and you show that you actually will maintain the ethical standards that journalism requires, you mat move up to a larger paper, and perhaps, if you are lucky enough/talented enough/good enough, you may end up writing for the NYTimes.
Problem is that these days, college students have such an overinflated sense of entitlement that they think it’s somehow unfair for them to have to do the actual hard work involved before you can begin to be rewarded.
Oh no, not for them. They deserve the reward, right now, simply because they do.
Diversity is a bull-shitting tip. Diversity is an insult to any human that is aware that no race or culture has an advantage over another except in a trend-of-times-event.
Diversity is a fuzzy minded concept that resonates among fuzzy minded people.
That’s not what that quote says, unless you’re referring to another quote you didn’t post.
Why do some people always assume that attempting to hire a diverse staff means hiring unqualified or underqualified minorities?
Mcgowan’s book was reviewed rather sensibly, IMHO, in [url=http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0201.mnookin.html]This article**. It wasn’t a slam dunk award winning book.
Do you, december, when you say
think that minorities have it “in” for conservatives, and this may have colored your perceptions?
Can you provide us with an example of this supposed rash of “unfair shots at conservatives.” I read the Times more or less everyday, and I can’t recall a single recent article by a Times journalist, nor any editorial written to represent the editorial position of the Times that has struck me as constituting unfairness to conservatives.
It’s very simple. When december refers to “unfair shots at conservatives,” that’s the same thing as what anyone else would refer to as “editorials that are in any way, shape, or form critical of the actions of any conservative.”
In december’s world-view, any publication that doesn’t consistently sing the praises of the right wing is clearly unfair and biased. After, how could it be otherwise, since the right wing is always, well, right?! :rolleyes:
The conduct of this reporter was outrageous, and the NYT should rightly be smarting from this scandal for a bit. I failed in its duty to watch its own henhouse, and did so in the midst of rhetoric about how diversity improved the quality of news reporting.
Let’s also all congratulate december on an OP that, while it fits the general pattern of the standard “look! I found some musing on Sullivan’s blog about something bad that shows that liberals are decrepit losers that I’ve decided to repost here!” in spirit, in practice actually asks a legitimate question about a legitimately bad incident without getting overheated or overgeneralizing.
One thing I’d never accuse the media of is quality, but the taste of news readership will always be the primary problem in that regard.
I agree that McGowan’s book was controversial. It was quite policically incorrect.
To me, Mnookin’s review reads like a hit piece. The first seven paragraphs talk about some of the background, but have nothing to do with the book itself. Mnookin then has some general criticisms, but only a few specific examples. These are mostly too vague to be certain whether they’re fair and correct.
The Blair scandal certainly strengthen’s McGowan’s case.
You said Mnookin’s review was “sensible”. Did you read McGowan’s book and did you check Mnookin’s criticisms, samclem? ISTM that for the National Press Club to award their prize to such a non-PC book, the book would need to be extra good.
I’ve not worked in journalism, so for me it’s a question of who to believe. As I recall, McGowan’s book said gay journallists, in particular, tended to favor a certain agenda, which was anti-conservative, among other things.
Mandelstam, you asked for examples of unfair shots at conservatives. Just this week, Paul Krugman mentioned the fable about Bush supposedly being AWOL while in the military reserves, even though the New York Times itself had investigated that story and found no support for it. An earlier article by the same columnist accused Bush of lying about his concern over Iraq’s WMDs. In fact, there is no evidence that Bush didn’t sincerely believe what he said about the WMDs, even if he was wrong. (and, I have now seen articles about missing material at nuclear labs and about the discovery of likely biological weapons labs, so it looks more and more like Bush wasn’t wrong.)
An editorial a day or two ago about post-war Iraq took a gratuitous swipe at the President, questioning his desire to see Iraq governed properly. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to find recent editorials in the Times web site, although they should be still available.
I would say that the absolute low point in the Times’ reporting was that total asshole Walter Duranty who reported out of the Times’ Moscow bureau in the years prior to WWII. He was a bigtime Stalin apologist who actively helped cover up the artificial famine Stalin created in Soviet Georgia, which killed millions. His reward for this treachery? He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize!
Duranty’s skin was very white, but December’s candidate is just a piker compared to him. Ignominy doesn’t believe in race.
The New York Times has done a pretty good job of burying this stinker’s ignominy – unless you know his name, it’s very hard to dig up info about him. But I’m glad to help folks remember what a total scumbag Walter Duranty of the New York Times was.
“One thing I’d never accuse the media of is quality, but the taste of news readership will always be the primary problem in that regard.”
Thank you. This one statement rather eliminates the ‘left v. right’ nonsense and states the problem succinctly: the media long ago abandoned any guise of objectivity in favor of ‘news novelism’ which seeks to satisfy what they perceive as the current taste of the readership at the expense of the facts. Giant media corporations have no interest whatsoever in reporting the news factually, nor, for that matter, have local newpapers ever been all that responsible since the invention of the printing press. They are interested in selling advertising and increasing readership in order to maximize the price of that advertising. The local demographic determines the content of the news, not some naive ‘just the facts ma’am’ idealism that a High School journalism class may have provided.
Diversity in a news reporting agency, were they sincere in reporting the news objectively, would be about as important as diversity in a bridge engineering company – the facts are the facts, and it makes no difference who does the math. But we are already cynical enough to realize that the news depends entirely on who reports it, and just how they go about it, else this discussion would be no discussion at all. Someone was caught ‘fabricating’ news? Damn. What a surprise.
Does it matter what the race or political leaning of that individual might be? Not a bit.
It is disingenuous to pretend shock when one particular individual, with one particular set of characteristics, is caught fabricating and manipulating under the guise of ‘reporting.’ It has never been any different, and will never be. Let the reader beware.
Gairloch
december: Mandelstam, you asked for examples of unfair shots at conservatives. Just this week, Paul Krugman mentioned the fable about Bush supposedly being AWOL while in the military reserves, even though the New York Times itself had investigated that story and found no support for it. An earlier article by the same columnist accused Bush of lying about his concern over Iraq’s WMDs. In fact, there is no evidence that Bush didn’t sincerely believe what he said about the WMDs, even if he was wrong. (and, I have now seen articles about missing material at nuclear labs and about the discovery of likely biological weapons labs, so it looks more and more like Bush wasn’t wrong.)
december :smack: How many times have explained the difference between an article written by a journalist and a column to you? I’m fairly certain I can recall at least 4 occasions whenI have done so. Others have also tried. The Times has a variety of columnists that write from a polemical stance and, yes, Krugman is probably the most consistently critical of the Bush administration. Others are far less so. Why is it that you don’t bother to protest the unfairness of William Safire to the Bush administration?
As to the column in question, it is too late to link to it; but as I recall Krugman specifically said that the story had been investigated by another reputable paper: I think it may have been the Boston Globe which, IIRC, is owned by the Times.
Oh, and as to your Timeswatch excerpts. Please note, precisely none of these examples refers to an article written by a journalist. And I fail to see how any of the rest demonstrates unfairness? What kind of authority is Timeswatch anyway? Seriously, december, don’t you ever do anything thinking for yourself? You seem to think that a source is somehow less blatantly partisan simply because someone has slapped it up on a website. Even with respect to the columnists–who write from an acknowledged partisan standpoint–there is nothing in your excerpts to establish anything even remotely like a case for “unfairness.” So what if Friedman–who agrees with Bush policy on a number of counts–describes the Bush agenda as “radical right”? What’s so unfair about that? How do you think Bush’s agenda should be described when he is certainly on the right (versus the left or the center) and when so many of his key policies (from taxcuts to the Bush doctrine) represent unprecedented changes in degree or kind.
Gairloch: “This one statement rather eliminates the ‘left v. right’ nonsense and states the problem succinctly: the media long ago abandoned any guise of objectivity in favor of ‘news novelism’ which seeks to satisfy what they perceive as the current taste of the readership at the expense of the facts. Giant media corporations have no interest whatsoever in reporting the news factually, nor, for that matter, have local newpapers ever been all that responsible since the invention of the printing press. They are interested in selling advertising and increasing readership in order to maximize the price of that advertising. The local demographic determines the content of the news, not some naive ‘just the facts ma’am’ idealism that a High School journalism class may have provided.”
I’m a pretty frequent critic of the media on these boards on various grounds so I don’t disagree with the thrust of your post. I do disagree, strongly, that it has much relevance to this particulars of this OP however. Although I guess you can justify calling the company that owns the New York Times a “giant media corporation” it is quite different from other such giant media corporations (e.g., News Corp) that have a vested interest in blurring the line between entertainment and journalism. To the contrary, the Times has a vested interest in keeping up journalistic standards: that’s the “product” that they offer. Although I do think the Times sometimes shows its corporate colors, and I know of specific instances in which the Times has been justly scolded for pro-corporate bias by media watchdogs, on the whole, it’s absurd to imply that the Times has no interest in reporting the news factually, or event that the Times’s reporting responds to a local demographic. If the Times didn’t sell papers outside of New York City they’d be in big trouble.
Mandelstam, why are you bringing up the distinction between journalists and columnists. All I said was that the Times had take unfair shots at conservatives, and I gave you a bunch of examples.
On re-reading your post, I see you asked for examples by a journalist or a Times editorial. That was more restricted than what I had said. I provided one example of an unfair shot in an editorial. If I subscribed to the Times archives, I could easily find dozens of problematic editorials.
BTW, when Raines was in charge of the op-ed page, it was very slanted against conservatives. They had venomous articles and editorials. E.g., during the trumped up Newt Gingrich scandal, the Times had at least half a dozen editorials blasting him for tax evasion associated with GOPAC. Of course, after the IRS studied the subject, they found no problem, but by then Gingrich’s reputation was ruined. That’s one reason why I have no sympathy for Raines.
Smarter times no longer publishes. However, if you read their archives and their letters, you can find innumerable instances of errors and biases in the Times.
Obviously the Times is still a very good paper, but it’s not as good as it was 40 years ago IMHO.
*Mandelstam, why are you bringing up the distinction between journalists and columnists. All I said was that the Times had take unfair shots at conservatives, and I gave you a bunch of examples.
On re-reading your post, I see you asked for examples by a journalist or a Times editorial. That was more restricted than what I had said. I provided one example of an unfair shot in an editorial. If I subscribed to the Times archives, I could easily find dozens of problematic editorials." *
decedmber, why are you asking questions that you have already answered for yourself? And no, you provided no examples of an unfair shot in an editorial: you claimed there was a “gratuitious swipe” in an editorial you didn’t post.
Time to pony up: here is a link to the archived editorials; the last weeks are still free and the rest are summarized. Let’s see what this so-called “gratituitious swipe” looks like in the (electronic) flesh.
When I read about the intern (Jayson Blair) who was fast on his way to becoming editor-in-chief at the NYT even though he had no experience or, apparently, ethics, I was reminded of EVERY SINGLE TV NEWS OPERATION I HAVE EVER WORKED FOR. I just didn’t expect that out of the Times (Washington Times maybe, but not the New York Times).
