May 12, 2003

May 12, 2003

THE NEW YORK TIMES TRADES MERITOCRACY FOR DIVERSITY AND GETS ITS ASS BIT

Yale Kramer

Front page news: “A staff reporter for The New York Times committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months, an investigation by Times journalists has found. The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper.” Not quite, the low point is soon to be reached—the cover-up of those really responsible for the debacle of Jayson Blair’s four year career on the Times.

From the front page, the story goes on for two whole pages and then another two whole pages of evidence of his wrong-doing covering the last three years, nailing Blair in 39 instances of fraud, plagiarism, and concocting the truth. Gosh, you’d have to go back to Watergate for this kind of coverage. It’s as though with this coverage the Times editors want to drive a stake through the heart of this monstrous event to be rid of it forever. Not bloody likely.

Jayson Blair is a liar, a cheat, an impostor, fraud, con man, and thief. But the Times, afraid of appearing racist—Blair is black—reaches for its stock social worker brand of psychobabble and refers to him as a “troubled young man veering toward professional self-destruction.” But it is because The New York Times is so “compassionate” and race-conscious, and confused in its thinking about whether it is running a newspaper or a social work agency whose aim is to rectify social injustice, that this man’s career (if he ever had one aside from all the affirmative action promotions he’s received) is doomed. If he had been white, he would have been fired for his sloppiness, carelessness, and incorrigibility after a three or four month trial period, and told to go and shape up. No great harm would have been done to a great newspaper, to its readers, and to the stories of the people Blair covered. And he would have learned better or gone into some other trade.

The story in today’s Times was written by five people and researched by two more. They tell a story that is noteworthy for its circumspection and constraint. You have the feeling that the story has been heavily edited and does not speak in a full throated way. What is there may be the truth but, you feel, not the whole truth.

The most astonishing thing about the story is not that Blair turned out to be a con man and plagiarist, that happens occasionally, even in the best of journalistic institutions, but the denial of the reality of this man’s sociopathy as demonstrated by the chronicity of his errant behavior. Time after time his sloppiness, carelessness, absences, running up company expenses at the bar around the corner, breaches of confidentiality, racking up parking tickets on company cars—but most of all his error making—was noted by all the editors he worked for. And they all tried to whip him into shape in one way or another—advice, lectures, warnings—to no avail. His reaction on one occasion suggests he was well aware of his special position as a protégé of senior editors: “Mr. Blair's e-mail from that time demonstrate how he expressed penitence to Mr. Landman, then vented to another editor about how he had ‘held my nose’ while writing the apology. Meanwhile, after a disagreement with a third editor, Patrick LaForge, who tracks corrections for the metropolitan desk, he threatened to take up the issue ‘with the people who hired me — and they all have executive or managing editor in their titles.’”

Many mid-level editors tried to warn senior editors about Blair but all such warnings were shunted aside. In fact denial at the highest levels of the newspaper continue. In Sunday’s article “Pinch” Sulzberger says that “there will be no newsroom search for scapegoats. ‘The person who did this is Jayson Blair,’ he said. ‘Let's not begin to demonize our executives — either the desk editors or the executive editor or, dare I say, the publisher.’" That’s Mr. Sulzberger’s way of disavowing his responsibility and the responsibility of Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd in all of this. And of dismissing any criticism of their policy of devaluing merit and overvaluing diversity as first journalistic principles.

Throughout the article, over and over again, its authors hint that Gerald Boyd, managing editor and second-highest-ranking newsroom executive, and his boss, Howell Raines, executive editor, protected Blair from being fired and even promoted him.

“In January 2001, Mr. Blair was promoted to full-time reporter with the consensus of a recruiting committee of roughly half a dozen people headed by Gerald M. Boyd, then a deputy managing editor, and the approval of Mr. Lelyveld [then executive editor].

“Mr. Landman said last week that he had been against the recommendation — that he ‘wasn't asked so much as told’ about Mr. Blair's promotion. But he also emphasized that he did not protest the move.

“The publisher and the executive editor, he said, had made clear the company's commitment to diversity — ‘and properly so,’ he said. [He’d better if he wants to go on working there.] In addition, he said, Mr. Blair seemed to be making the mistakes of a beginner [after two years] and was still demonstrating great promise….Mr. Boyd…said last week that the decision to advance Mr. Blair had not been based on race. Indeed, plenty of young white reporters have been swiftly promoted through the ranks. [But not with the problematic record that Blair had created.]

" ‘To say now that his promotion was about diversity in my view doesn't begin to capture what was going on,’ said Mr. Boyd, who is himself African-American. ‘He was a young, promising reporter who had done a job that warranted promotion.’" [There is nothing in the article that would have substantiated that view among the editors who knew Blair. In fact, three months later, Blair’s declining performance—more errors and clashes with more editors—prompted Landman to write that the newspaper had to “stop Blair from writing for the Times.”]

Raines and Boyd were deaf to such entreaties. In fact they next assigned Blair to the National Desk under James Roberts. Both editors, Raines and Boyd, said the seeming improvement in Mr. Blair's accuracy last summer demonstrated that he was ready to help cover a complicated, high-profile assignment. [The Washington Sniper Case.] But they did not tell Mr. Roberts or his deputies about the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Blair's reporting. “ ‘That discussion did not happen,’ Mr. Raines said, adding that he had seen no need for such a discussion because Mr. Blair's performance had improved, and because ‘we do not stigmatize people for seeking help.’” [How about stigmatizing them for incorrigibility?]

With Blair it turned out to be little stories, little problems; big stories, big problems. As soon as he began his reporting on the sniper case he began catching flak from the United States Attorney and the FBI about his inaccuracies. But Raines and Boyd decided to keep from Roberts Blair’s problematical journalism. “Mr. Roberts and Mr. Fox said in interviews last week that the statements would have raised far more serious concerns in their minds had they been aware of Mr. Blair's history of inaccuracy. Both editors also said they had never asked Mr. Blair to identify his sources in the article.

" ‘I can't imagine accepting unnamed sources from him as the basis of a story had we known what was going on,’ Mr. Fox said. ‘If somebody had said, “Watch out for this guy,” I would have questioned everything that he did. I can't even imagine being comfortable with going with the story at all, if I had known that the metro editors flat out didn't trust him.’

“Mr. Raines and Mr. Boyd, who knew more of Mr. Blair's history, also did not ask him to identify his sources. The two editors said that given what they knew then, there was no need. There was no inkling, Mr. Raines said, that the newspaper was dealing with ‘a pathological pattern of misrepresentation, fabricating and deceiving.’

“Mr. Raines said he saw no reason at that point to alert Mr. Roberts to Mr. Blair's earlier troubles. Rather, in keeping with his practice of complimenting what he considered exemplary work, Mr. Raines sent Mr. Blair a note of praise for his ‘great shoe-leather reporting.’” [Gasp. In Alcoholics Anonymous they call this enabling.]

“It was not until January, Mr. Roberts recalled, that he was warned about Mr. Blair's record of inaccuracy. He said Mr. Landman quietly told him that Mr. Blair was prone to error and needed to be watched. Mr. Roberts added that he did not pass the warning on to his deputies.

“By then, however, those deputies had already formed their own assessments of Mr. Blair's work. They said they considered him a sloppy writer who was often difficult to track down and at times even elusive about his whereabouts.”

Blair’s deceitful practices continued protected by the senior editors until April 29 when he was accused of plagiarism by The San Antonio Express-News. Then and only then did it begin to dawn that Blair was a liar and a fraud.

Up to this moment Howell Raines, Gerald Boyd and Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. refuse to accept the responsibility for this scandal. They do not see that their policy of affirmative action—what they call diversity—results in the degradation of journalistic values by having differing standards for blacks and whites. Their denial of the reality of Blair’s incorrigibility, their refusal to consult others and heed the warnings of others because of their own ideological needs is the basic reason for the Blair Scandal. If they had not continued to protect Blair in the service of their foolish and arrogant aim of making the world over in their own image, The New York Times and the world would have been better off.

But apparently the executive cover-up will remain in place and these destructive policies will continue to degrade the quality of one of America’s great journalistic institutions.