More mud on the New York Times

[Satisfying_Andy_Licious]

Times suspends Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg

By HOWARD KURTZ
The Washington Post

The fallout over the Jayson Blair debacle at the New York Times has hit a far more prominent Times reporter, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg.

In an editor’s note Friday, the paper said that Bragg had only briefly visited the Florida town of Apalachicola, from which he filed a story last June, and that most of the reporting had been done by a stringer. That freelance reporter, J. Wes Yoder, should have shared a byline with Bragg, the paper said. …

[december]

Slate gives a more thorough and more damning analysis of the Bragg affair. They infer that Bragg likely made up some of the details and that he likely has done a lot of “reporting” by merely re-writing work by local stringers in his own style, often resulting in large numbers of errors.

Visiting a scene just long enough to claim a dateline for an article based on somebody else’s uncredited reporting—let’s call it a “dateline toe-touch”—it’s dishonest for a writer like Bragg—who prides himself in brushing literary lacquer to the down-home details he harvests—to publish under his byline sights, sounds, and scenes collected by somebody else. Bragg’s offense undercuts both his reputation and the Times’. And it calls into question whether Bragg has availed himself of this shortcut methodology before…

The Apalachicola story abounds with Braggian narrative detail, describing in its lede the meanderings of an oyster boat over the bay’s oyster beds…

Every newspaper employs wordsmiths in the newsroom to rewrite breaking news collected by reporters in the field. The legendary Robert D. McFadden excelled in this capacity at the Times. But the rewrite guy never pretends to be at the scene of the story, as Bragg did, and most newspapers acknowledge at a story’s close which correspondents collected news for the team effort.

…It’s unlikely (though possible) that such precise notes could have been written by Yoder,…More plausibly, the well-traveled Bragg conjured the Apalachicolan scenes and moods based on the tyro’s notes and on his knowledge of the area…

The editor’s note bends Times policy in stating the article “should have” carried Yoder’s byline in addition to Bragg’s. Given the facts, I can’t imagine how the Times could possibly justify giving Yoder a byline. Times spokesperson Catherine J. Mathis explains that a stringer can earn a byline “in the exceptional cases of unusual enterprise or unusual writing style”—but there’s nothing enterprising about the Apalachicola story, and the writing appears to be pure Bragg…

Bragg’s unorthodox use of uncredited reporters may explain the number of corrections the Times has appended to other Bragg stories over the years. Every reporter makes mistakes, but Bragg’s gargantuan goofs defy explanation—often making you wonder if he even visited the scene of his own story.

They also mention that Bragg’s punishment is a mere 2 week suspension.

[MercyStreet]

A mere two-week paid suspension. Rick Bragg has a big future in compiling local sports agate.

Stick around for Act III. Act IV will be a goodie, too.

[Brutus]

Act 4 is the finest, I agree. And NYT just got popped for libel.

At least the Weekly World News is entertaining. (Well, Batboy…) What’s the NYT’s excuse?

[Tuckerfan]

Well, considering what the NYT pays, I’d say that none of this should come as a surprise.

[j.c]

The NYT is notorious for not giving stringers and researchers credit.

december - Slate implies that there may more to the NYT SOP in Bragg’s case, but provide no evidence. Additionally, there are no goofs I would consider gargantuan, and his number of corrections - especially if you exclude photo-related corrections - is normal.

[december]

*Originally posted by j.c. *
december - Slate implies that there may more to the NYT SOP in Bragg’s case, but provide no evidence.

True. As I understand Slate’s point, Bragg’s article has his trademark level of local color-- a great many telling details, which Slate thinks were unlikely to have been contributed by an inexperienced stringer. Too bad we don’t have the article available so we could judge for ourselves.

Additionally, there are no goofs I would consider gargantuan, and his number of corrections - especially if you exclude photo-related corrections - is normal.

Are you referring to this article for which Blair was suspended, or to the two examples with multiple corrections mentioned in Slate?

[j.c]

decemberSlate. If you have a subscription to the NYT or another index that includes the NYT, check the number of corrections against the number of bylines. Bragg is still average or below.