Posted on 05/12/2003 4:54:33 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
Here's the Times' summary of what went wrong:
Some reporters and administrators did not tell editors about Mr. Blair's erratic behavior. Editors did not seek or heed the warnings of other editors about his reporting. Five years' worth of information about Mr. Blair was available in one building, yet no one put it together to determine whether he should be put under intense pressure and assigned to cover high-profile national events.Actually, the Times' own reporting shows that's not entirely true. When you read the full account, it's clear that many people not only connected the dots but put their concerns in writing - at almost every step of the way in Blair's swift and short career. When the Metro editor can write an email that says it's time to "stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right Now," over a year ago, it's inconceivable that the reporter in question should subsequently be assigned to a major role in a "flood the zone" story like the Washington sniper case. Yet that is precisely what happened. In fact, after dozens of warnings, counseling leaves and alarm bells, Howell Raines even sends Blair an email congratulating him for "great shoe-leather reporting" - for work that turns out to have been riddled with errors and fabrications! How could that happen? How does a rookie reporter, with Blair's record, get assigned a major role in such a story, produce a front-page scoop instantly, and never have an editor ask him who his sources are? When the scoop is immediately denied, trashed and rebutted, why does it take months for this to be investigated? How does a reporter whose former editor had written a memo demanding that he be removed from writing for the Times altogether get reassigned without his subsequent editor being informed of his record? Forget the affirmative action dimension. This is just recklessly bad management. It reminds me of the Catholic Church reassigning priests to new parishes without telling the parishioners of the priest's past. It smacks of a newsroom in which everyone is running scared of the big guy's favorite new hire, and so no one is able to stop a disaster from happening until it's too late. Ultimately, this scandal cannot be fobbed off on a twentysomething kid, however outrageous his sins. The New York Times' reputation is not the responsibility of new hires in their twenties. It's the responsibility of the editors, just as the responsibility for bad priests lies ultimately with the cardinals and bishops who hire them. In this instance, Raines is the Times' Cardinal Law. His imperial meddling, diversity obsessions, and mercurial management style all made Blair possible.
Good point. However, unlike Cardinal Law, I don't think Howell Raines will be removed. Only publisher Pinch Sulzberger can do that and Raines has some sort of strange mesmerizing hold over Pinch.
And we should refer to Pinch Sulzberger as Alexandra since he is the one mesmerized by Rasputin Raines.
Maybe they both belong to a Trotskyite cell or something like that.
I'm not so sure that Raines is the prime mover here. If Raines is only doing what he knows Pinch Sulzberger wants, that would explain the behavior of both.
I recall one reporter who shared some characteristics with Blair (though as far as I know she was not dishonest). Everyone knew that she would attend government meetings, or interview various people and then basically type her notes into the system and go home. The Copy Desk had to write the stories that appeared under her byline. They showed her raw stuff to me. She was borderline illiterate. But they covered for her -- the Copy Editors knew which way the wind blew. She eventually got a job at the Washington Post.
Oh yes he is.
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