“When a reputable newspaper lies, it poisons the community. Every other newspaper story becomes suspect. Anyone stung by a newspaper story feels emboldened to call it a lie. Facts are not only impugned but made impotent. And the tense constitutional debate about whether a newspaper must reveal its sources is irresponsibly polluted.
“The lie — the fabricated event, the made-up quote, the fictitious source — is the nightmare of any respected newsroom. It is intolerable not only because it discredits publications but because it debases communication, and democracy. . . .
“Great publications magnify beyond measure the voice of any single writer. Thus, when their editors and publishers want or need to know a source for what they print, they have to know it — and be able to assure the community or the courts that they do. Where this is not now the rule, let this sad affair at least have the good effect of making it the rule.”
The preceding three paragraphs are from an editorial about a humiliating journalistic deception foisted on a great newspaper by a troubled and unethical journalist. But they are not about the extraordinary embarrassment acknowledged last week by the New York Times involving its disgraced 27-year-old reporter Jayson Blair, who the Times said fabricated, plagiarized and falsified material in at least 36 of the 73 articles he wrote from October 2002 until last month.
Rather, those three paragraphs are from a Times editorial published 22 years ago, on April 17, 1981, and directed at the disclosure by The Post that one of its reporters, 26-year-old Janet Cooke, had fabricated a story about an 8-year-old drug addict in the nation’s capital, a story that had just been awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
Now it is the Times’ turn to absorb its own admonitions. Last Sunday the paper devoted more than four full pages to an exhaustive and candid report written by five of its own reporters that detailed the amazing journalistic fraud carried out by Blair, the internal events that help explain how it happened, and the paper’s fast and honorable attempt to correct the record. That account, as good as it was, still amounted to the Times investigating itself, something it would object to if industry or government were under the gun. The Post investigation after the Cooke affair was an exhaustive and independent account by the paper’s ombudsman at the time, Bill Green.
This is not a call for the Times to have an ombudsman. But the Times account didn’t press hard enough in some areas. It didn’t name the “newsroom administrators” who received a note in April 2002 from Metropolitan Editor Jonathan Landman stating, “We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now.” The account reported on why the top editors did not tell the national editor about concerns that had been raised previously about Blair, and on how the national editor, when Landman eventually told him about these problems quietly, did not pass them along to his deputies. But it didn’t press for any reflections by these editors on what seems like a remarkable breakdown in fundamental communication practices. It failed to answer why warning bells didn’t go off when other newspapers could not confirm some of Blair’s attention-getting “scoops” or why editors didn’t insist that Blair tell them who his sources were. It didn’t really address the culture in the newsroom — whether it was one of favoritism and whether scoops were so valued that they were not checked thoroughly.
Blair is clearly intelligent and energetic and an astute manipulator of newsroom culture. And he could deliver scoops. He is also African American, and many commentators have questioned whether the Times, which has an enviable commitment to a diverse newsroom emanating from the top, pushed him and promoted him too quickly, despite all the warning signs, because he is black. Top editors deny this; others suggest it may well have been a factor. The only ones who really know are the top editors, and this needs to be pressed further to keep the air clear on a vital issue. Blair’s sins have also been exhibited by some high-profile white magazine writers and columnists recently. But it is still crucial to know if there are traps in otherwise important and well-intentioned diversity projects.
Perhaps the most interesting quotation came from Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who said that while the paper will intensely examine how its readers were betrayed, there will be no newsroom search for scapegoats. “The person who did this is Jayson Blair. Let’s not begin to demonize our executives — either the desk editors or the executive editor or, dare I say, the publisher.” Certainly, newspapers are vulnerable, up to a point, to people who are determined to deceive. But Sulzberger’s comment struck me as the wrong thing to say at this time. There is of course no need to “demonize” editors. But editors are the gatekeepers who decide what gets into the paper; who check sources, assess careers and guide reporters; who take on the paper’s obligations to the public and the obligation to speak up and protect the paper internally. They should not be taken off the playing field when things go wrong.
I have long been an admirer of the Times. It is, in many respects, the best there is. But not in all respects. My view is that the paper is prone to bouts of hubris, an arrogance caused by excessive pride. In a follow-up message to the staff last week about the paper’s determination to take corrective action, Executive Editor Howell Raines talked about the Times as “this irreplaceable national institution.”
Well, yes, but maybe it’s best to let someone else say that or think that. The Post is also an excellent newspaper, but it is more humble, doesn’t consider itself an institution and is a quite open and scrappy place. And while it does not have the Times’ breadth, it is often first with a lot of big stories. It also learned a lot, and changed a lot, after the Janet Cooke affair.
