NYTimes Op/Ed: Truth, Lies and Subtext

[theapportioner]

Truth, Lies and Subtext
By BOB HERBERT


I've seen drunks, incompetents and out-and-out lunatics in the newsrooms I've passed through over the years. I've seen plagiarizers, fiction writers and reporters who felt it was beneath them to show up for work at all.

I remember a police captain who said of a columnist at The Daily News: "I didn't mind him makin' stuff up as long as I looked O.K. But now he's startin' to [tick] me off."

I was at NBC when some geniuses decided it was a good idea to attach incendiary devices to a few General Motors pickup trucks to show that the trucks had a propensity to burst into flames. That became a scandal that grew into a conflagration that took down the entire power structure at NBC News.

I've seen schmoozers, snoozers and high-powered losers in every venue I've been in. Most of these rogues, scoundrels and miscreants were white because most of the staffers in America's mainstream newsrooms are white. What I haven't seen in all these years was the suggestion that any of these individuals fouled up — or were put into positions where they could foul up — because they were white.

Which brings us to the Jayson Blair scandal. For those who have been watching nothing but the Food Network for the past few weeks, Mr. Blair was a Times reporter who resigned after it was learned that his work contained fabrications and plagiarized passages on a monumental scale. The truth and Jayson Blair inhabited separate universes. If there was a blizzard raging, Mr. Blair could tell you with the straightest and friendliest of faces that the weather outside was sunny and warm.

Now this would be a juicy story under any circumstances. But Mr. Blair is black, so there is the additional spice of race, to which so many Americans are terminally addicted.

Listen up: the race issue in this case is as bogus as some of Jayson Blair's reporting.

Mr. Blair was a first-class head case who was given a golden opportunity and responded by spreading seeds of betrayal every place he went. He betrayed his readers. He betrayed his profession. He betrayed the editors who hired and promoted him. But there was no racial component to that betrayal, any more than there was a racial component to the many betrayals of Mike Barnicle, a columnist who was forced to resign from The Boston Globe in 1998 after years of complaints about his work.

Although Mr. Barnicle is white, his journalistic sins have generally — and properly — been seen as the sins of an individual.

But the folks who delight in attacking anything black, or anything designed to help blacks, have pounced on the Blair story as evidence that there is something inherently wrong with The Times's effort to diversify its newsroom, and beyond that, with the very idea of a commitment to diversity or affirmative action anywhere.

And while these agitators won't admit it, the nasty subtext to their attack is that there is something inherently wrong with blacks.

Jayson Blair should have been yanked away from his computer long ago. There had been plenty of warnings. The failure to act on those warnings was a breakdown in management for which the paper is paying a heavy price. I don't want to hear that the devil — in this case a devil named diversity — was to blame.

The idea that blacks can get away with the journalistic equivalent of murder at The Times because they are black is preposterous.

There's a real shortage of black reporters, editors and columnists at The Times. But the few who are here are doing fine and serious work day in and day out and don't deserve to be stigmatized by people who can see them only through the prism of a stereotype.

The problem with American newsrooms is too little diversity, not too much. Blacks have always faced discrimination and maddening double standards in the newsroom, and they continue to do so. So do women, Latinos and many other groups that are not part of the traditional newsroom in-crowd.

So let's be real. Discrimination in the newsroom — in hiring, in the quality of assignments and in promotions — is a much more pervasive problem than Jayson Blair's aberrant behavior. A black reporter told me angrily last week, "After hundreds of years in America, we are still on probation."

I agree. And the correct response is not to grow fainthearted, or to internalize the views of those who wish you ill. The correct response is to strike back — as hard and as often as it takes.

[The_Rorschach]

That was an excellent piece, delivered with flair, accumen and relevancy. I think entirely too much has been made of this entire situation, and furthermore, making it a headline was undignified as well as the the way it has been handled since is indiscrete.

But I disagree in one small point, or rather, the main point which is the one his entire thesis rests on:

"And while these agitators won't admit it, the nasty subtext to their attack is that there is something inherently wrong with blacks."

This is just ridiculous. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclaimation one hundred and forty years ago, and I've growing sick of apologising for the actions of men who's grandchildren died long before today. This percieved mindset the author propositions is baseless, and is presented without any substitant support whatsoever. He doesn't make any attempt to justify it, he simply states it as fact, and I , for one, am not going to mindlessly nod along from the sidelines.

"So let's be real. Discrimination in the newsroom — in hiring, in the quality of assignments and in promotions — is a much more pervasive problem than Jayson Blair's aberrant behavior"

Oh really? Somehow I can't help but think that if the discrimination was as prevailant within the hiring habits of the New York Times that whites were being chosen over better qualified blacks, that we would have been hearing earfuls of it long before now.

The New York Times, with a September 1999 circulation of 1,086,000, is the unofficial social, fashion, entertainment, political, and cultural guide of the nation. Such as status as it had attained is both a blessing and a curse, for while it makes it an incredibly affluent and influential periodical, it also makes it an object of scrutiny in every detail. If there was any favouritism shown towards whites, it would have been pointed out by a rival long before now. Also, perhaps of note, perhaps not, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is the paper's current publisher and the chairman of the New York Times Co. The executive editor is Joseph Lelyveld. Both are Jews. If any people are going to be aware of discriminatory practices, I believe it would be they, therefore his accusations of no diversity is clearly faulty at best.

[theapportioner]

Minor point of correction: the executive editor is now Howell Raines, who, for the record only, is a white southerner.

Anyway, I don't have data on the diversity of the media wing of the NYTimes company, or of other journalistic entities, so I have no way of evaluating that part of the argument.

I do think that Herbert is right in pointing out that in the Raines fiasco, his "blackness" needlessly became part of the issue, whereas with the Barnicle disaster and most other scandals of journalistic fraud, it's always about integrity, more appropriately the failings thereof. As if we see blacks as "black individuals", and others as "individuals".

[The_Rorschach]

His race is, I agree, not the issue. Its stupid to see things in line of colour, regardless of whether you are twisting this to show affirmative action as a crippled concept, or using it to justify institutionalized diversity.

I was trying to make that point earlier, but I think I let my indignance get the better of me.

[Zosimus]

Any story will loose its general value, when irrelavant information is introduced into the context. One must rationalize what the story is about and then cut out all the irrelavancy out of it.

Now this would be a juicy story under any circumstances. But Mr. Blair is black, so there is the additional spice of race, to which so many Americans are terminally addicted.

Listen up: the race issue in this case is as bogus as some of Jayson Blair's reporting.

Ergo, what is more important in this story? Is it more interesting that the Times (or any other media: Fox, CNN, NBC, ABC, etc.) hire a bunch of lying sacks of shit that time and again, prove themselves to be nothing but lame liars? OR was more interesting that it was a "black" journalist that brought the scandal unto them?

In this article, I see three "stories":

1) The Times has extremely bad judgement in finding qualified/competent journalists to do their work.

2) A "black" journalist (vs. all the white ones) has gone nuts and lied out his ass to the whole Times-reading nation.

3) 1+2 = 3 ~ Since both stories are true, they have to create yet another distraction so that the readers forget what happened in the first place!!

....please don't shoot me Ror.............

[theapportioner]

You are an idiot. Die.

[Zosimus]

I guess idiotacy is contagious