Friday, May 23, 2003
HAVE A GREAT MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND!
THE FRIDAY FIVE
1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
Mentadent Advanced Care.
2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Charmin. The softer, the better.
3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
At work, whatever kind of generic dress or dress casual shoe I can afford. At home, Adidas or Nike. (Currently Nike. They were on sale.)
4. What brand of soda do you drink?
I'm not a big soda drinker, but I like all kinds. Sprite, Mountain Dew and Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi.
5. What brand of gum do you chew?
Whatever anyone gives me. I rarely buy gum.
McGOWAN ON THE MEDIA
And for more McGowan, here's an interview with him about Jayson Blair at Times Watch. Note this comment, with which I generally agree:
"I don’t think the Blair case should impose a stigma on all minority journalists. It shouldn’t invalidate all diversity efforts either, especially efforts aimed at casting a wide net, opening doors to talented people, all the while maintaining standards as you are doing so. But I do think you’d be journalistically at fault if you didn’t acknowledge where diversity and race was a factor in the Blair case and the Times institutional response to it."
Amen to that.
Thursday, May 22, 2003
HEDGES UPDATE
And here's James Lileks on Hedges' speech:
Is it wrong to deliver an antiwar commencement address? Of course not. You could argue that it would be a dereliction of your duties not to bring the outside world into your comments, since that’s the place to which the grads are headed. But such a speech needs to persuade. It needs to draw the audience close, make eye contact. Crack a joke, wax colloquial, opine a bit, then bring it all back to the grads. Pat them on the back, remind them that the process of learning has just begun, warn them against cant of any sort, and give them a closing that wraps this extraordinary day up in one sweet smart line they can take with them for the hard years to come.
What did he do? He cracked the mike, and said I have come to talk about war, and empire. You could just hear the shoulders sag: oh man. It’s Mr. Big Wet Pillow fingering his Vietnamese worry-beads. As if we haven’t heard this for the last four years.
That's perfect.
ON CONDITION OF ANONYMITY
One inescapable conclusion from this scandal is that the Times has developed an addictive tolerance for anonymous sources, the crack cocaine of journalism. The Times could not go cold turkey even in its extraordinary Mother's Day cataloging of Blair's journalistic sins, an occasion that cried out for 100% on-the-record reporting. For no apparent reason other than habit, an entirely innocuous e-mail message was attributed to "one fellow reporter."
It is virtually impossible to read an important front-page story in the Times and not stumble across anonymous sources, either used directly to supply what we assume is factual information, or indirectly in those ever popular "context-setting" sentences. Here's an example of both types from today's paper:
Mr. Rumsfeld's initial proposal came at a time when questions were being raised both inside and out the government over the quality of the intelligence concerning links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. One intelligence official said Mr. Rumsfeld had become irritated by disagreements within the intelligence community over the possible links between Iraq and the Qaeda network. Before the war, some Pentagon officials expressed frustration over what they perceived to be excessive caution on the part of C.I.A. analysts who found scant Qaeda-Iraqi connections, according to several intelligence officials.
Anonymous sources can certainly be important, but it is possible to overdo it. The Times overdoes it on a daily basis.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
MORE 'TIMES' BASHING
MORE 'TIMES' BASHING: Did you see this story? Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times war correspondent, launched an 18-minute tirade that could have been penned by Noam Chomsky at the graduation ceremony for Rockford College. Think I'm kidding about the Chomskyite content? Listen for yourself. I did, and not once did he even mention the kids who were getting their diplomas that day. There wasn't even a "as you go out into the world" bit at the end of his rant. It was just pure bile directed at the Bush administration. No wonder he was loudly and heartily booed, and nearly yanked off the stage.
I'm not saying Hedges doesn't have the right to say what he believes. But I have to wonder about whether it was appropriate to vent his spleen in such a manner at a graduation ceremony. Furthermore, any claims of "objectivity" Hedges may make in his role as a journalist can no longer be taken seriously.
What was he thinking? Apparently, he was thinking that the people in the audience at this liberal arts college were a bunch of brainwashed sheep.
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
CHALLENGING THE 'TIMES'
I'm all for that. Sure, the Post's stories are widely read because they're available through wire services nationwide, but it would be great to go into any bookstore or 7-11 in the nation and purchase an edition of the paper that carries a national slant.
IS THIS SPREADING?
The Post identified its bad boy as Robin Gregg, a freelancer who the paper's brass said 'fessed up to stealing a story from that paragon of journalism the National Enquirer. Some would call that a perfect fit for the fact-challenged Post.
Ouch.
BLACK JOURNALISTS ON BLAIR
The discomfort that I and some other black journalists felt in the wake of the Blair fiasco exposed the frustrating degree to which we are still dependent upon others' ability or willingness to see us as individuals. What makes our plight so painfully clear are the appalling and bizarrely illogical reactions of various white journalists. For all their vaunted liberalness, they have in columns and editorials implicated Blair as an affirmative action blunderer by which all black hires should be judged. It's preposterous to suggest that one reporter's shortcomings indict all programs aimed at increasing newsroom diversity, yet some reputedly knowledgeable observers have argued as much....
I do feel some compassion for Blair, despite my annoyance. His flameout had to hurt, and I get no kicks from anyone's pain. If his disgrace has a bright side, it is that the consequent discussions about diversity in journalism will ultimately show how overwhelmingly white the profession remains.
Take magazines, for instance.
Except at the newsweeklies, most minority employees found at mass-media magazines are answering the phones and emptying the trash. Research the names on the editorial mastheads at GQ, Esquire, Vogue, The Nation, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Harper's, The American Prospect and The Atlantic Monthly--put them all together--and see if you can find enough minority writers and editors to use up all the fingers on one hand. That would be a far more useful exercise than merely raising a ruckus about race.
I especially loved the sweeping and erroneous bit about Blair representing the "standard by which all black hires should be judged." Who in the hell has written that? And then that part at the end, where he claims that raising a ruckus about the racial makeup of certain magazines would be a far more useful exercise than "merely raising a ruckus about race." Huh?
For another perspective, here's Joseph Perkins in the San Diego Union-Tribune:
"Did race have anything to do with the awful case of Brian Walski, the Los Angeles Times photographer who fabricated the photograph out of Iraq earlier this year?" asks a news release from the National Association of Black Journalists.
"Was it a factor with the two Salt Lake City reporters who sold a fabricated story to the National Enquirer for $20,000 in the Elizabeth Smart case?
"Was it a factor with Mike Barnicle, Stephen Glass, Ruth Shalit, Eric Drudis or the dozens of other white journalists who smeared the honorable profession of journalism and lied to their readers?
"Why should it be a factor here?"
Well, here's why: Those white journalists are seen as individuals. They are not viewed as members of a separate class or designated group, mainly because they were not hired through some special program that appears from afar to hold its beneficiaries to less demanding standards than those outside the program.
Indeed, the fact that the Times even has a minority program suggests that its editors believe they have to cut corners to hire minorities. It implies that, if the Times subjected minorities to the same hiring criteria as whites, the newspaper's reporting ranks would look like an audience at a Lincoln Center chamber music concert.
But here's the reality: There are roughly 6,500 black, Hispanic and Asian journalists throughout the fair land, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
A newspaper that boasts the Gray Lady's prestige can certainly attract the best and brightest of those minority journalists without some stigmatizing program.
When the day comes that The New York Times and other news organizations practice colorblind hiring, when minorities are brought on staff as individuals rather than members of a special class, then the failings of one minority journalist – like Jayson Blair – will not reflect badly on all.
Amen to that.
Monday, May 19, 2003
JAYSON BLAIR UPDATE
In other news, here's a profile of Macarena Hernandez, who alerted the Times to Blair's plagiarism of her story in the San Antonio Express-News. The author makes some valid points about efforts to diversify the workforce, and how that's not always a bad thing.
I have few problems with programs that identify promising minorities and try to help them get a foot in the door. (Notice I said a foot in the door, not a shove all the way up the ladder.) The problem comes when companies adopt aggressive affirmative-action programs that tie the number of minorities hired into a manager's career prospects. That only encourages cutting corners, and is probably the No. 1 factor behind most of the questionable AA-related hires I've seen in my career. Throwing people who are unprepared for a career in journalism into the hyperactive atmosphere of a newsroom just so you can get a little star by your name at the corporate office is a serious problem.
But it can be avoided. Large newspaper chains, which own papers of all sizes, can change their diversity programs so that all rookie reporters, regardless of ethnicity, are required to spend at least a year, preferably two or three, at a small newspaper. Yes, the pay is crummy, and yes, the nightlife may suck, but there's no better learning ground. And the Jayson Blairs of the world, rare as they are, would be weeded out.
Meanwhile, Roger Clegg says the Blair affair should have ramifications for all industries.
CROUCH DISMISSED
Crouch, a highly visible commentator and McArthur Foundation "genius" award-winner whose strong opinions and sometimes blustery manner have frequently provoked controversy, was dismissed after the publication of "Putting the White Man in Charge" in Jazz Times' April issue.
In the column, he wrote that white critics have elevated white jazz musicians "far beyond their abilities in order to allow white writers to make themselves feel more comfortable about evaluating an art from which they feel substantially alienated."
Crouch is certainly knowledgeable about jazz and the ways race is actually lived in America (as opposed to the way polemicists portray it), but he's also an iconoclast. It seems he often writes the first thing that pops into his find, because in many of his essays in years past he's explicitly made the point that the most important aesthetic assessments of jazz music have come from white critics, and that whites have been the primary promoters of jazz throughout its history. I guess he's changed his mind, though I haven't read the essay in question.
Like I said, I have often enjoyed Crouch's essays. But his New York Daily News column is god-awful on most days. It's like he's just going through the motions. Maybe his long-in-the-works biography of Charlie Parker will be worthwhile.
Saturday, May 10, 2003
THE FULL HORROR OF JAYSON BLAIR
UPDATE: John Rosenberg over at Discriminations has finally weighed in on L'affaire Blair. Well, sort of. He's actually describing what appears to be more dubious reporting from the Times, in this instance on a story about the affirmative action suit at the University of Michigan.
Friday, May 09, 2003
AND EVEN STILL MORE ON BLAIR
Boyd bristled when asked if Blair, who is black, figured in a bid by The Times to diversify its mostly white staff of national correspondents, saying, "It's not an issue about diversity, but about a reporter who had issues that allowed him to deceive."
Yes, but it's certainly difficult to imagine a twentysomething in such a lofty position in journalism if he wasn't black.
The Times hopes to publish a Sunday story detailing Blair's forgeries, and they're asking for help.
Finally, Slate's Jack Shafer offers his take on the Blair fiasco. In the process, he cites Janet Cooke, Patricia Smith, Stephen Glass and Jay Forman as famous news fakers, but leaves off Mike Barnicle.
And here's an interesting item from Google. Who had a prominent role in making sure Jayson Blair kept his job when he was under intense scrutiny for his errors at the New York Times? Gerald Boyd. And when Boyd won the National Association of Black Journalist's 2001 Journalist of the Year award, guess who nominated him? Jayson Blair. Hmmmmm. Sounds like they had no problem communicating on that one.
THIS IS STILL A STORY?
"First of all, you can't definitively say somebody is a racist unless you open up their closet and find a hood and white sheets," says Woods. "This leaves the paper in the untenable position of proving they are not racist. How do you prove that?"
For the umpteenth time, read this.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
JUST A THOUGHT
But I've yet to see a more terrifying scenario bandied about: that these weapons have already been dispersed to terrorists around the world. In other words, they could be in a train station locker in Paris, or a cellar in Rome, or a refugee camp in Gaza, or a self-storage shed in suburban D.C.
It's been going through my mind the past couple of days. Anyone else's?
DANGEROUS PLACES TO WORK
STILL MORE ON BLAIR
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
REVOKE THE PRIZE!
MORE TIMES-BASHING
THE HERSH-O-METER
Given this extraordinary track record, any thumbs-down flashed by Hersh must be interpreted as a leading indicator that the precise opposite is about to happen.
Give it a look.