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 Schadenfreude  |
This is the New York Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.
Posted on 05/13/2003 11:54:10 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
The New York Times was the nation's "newspaper of record," the "Good Gray Lady of 43rd Street," the gold standard by which all other newspapers were to be measured. So we were taught at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia. And so we believed. For it was true.
In the comprehensiveness of its coverage, accuracy of its reporting, the precision of language, spelling, grammar, the Times was the best. No paper came close. Its reporters, writers and editors were a constant presence at Columbia, conducting classes, lecturing us on how to report, write, edit, criticize, editorialize.
We were a farm club for the Times, though only a few of us ever made its roster. Among our faculty, it was considered the acme of success in our profession to write for the Times. Even copy editors on the "rim" of the copy desk were legends.
Though we were all in a master's program and some had edited college papers, won national awards or worked professionally, it was still an honor to be invited to serve as a copy boy at the Times.
Thus the sordid story of Times' star Jayson Blair is very big. For that story exposed a total collapse of standards at the Times and revealed the corruption of a once-great institution, which has prostituted itself to the commands of "diversity."
How could a kid in his mid-20s have taken the mighty Times to the cleaners? Going back over 73 of Blair's stories in six months, Times' editors found 36 examples of journalistic fraud. Assigned to cover the D.C. sniper case, Jayson broke the story that federal officials had blundered by interrupting the interrogation of alleged sniper John Muhammad, as he began "explaining the roots of his anger."
The story was false and deeply damaging to the reputation of a U.S. attorney. Yet Times' editor Howell Raines congratulated Blair on "great shoe-leather reporting," and Raines never bothered to ask for any of Blair's "five sources" for the story.
According to the Times' investigation, Blair sat in Brooklyn and used his word processor to hoke up stories from West Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Texas and Maryland. Sent to interview families of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, he made up scenes and quotes, or simply took them, without attribution, out of other newspapers.
How did he get away with it so long? It was, says the Times, the result of a "failure of communication among senior editors ... and [Blair's] savviness and his ingenious ways of covering his tracks."
But was Blair really all that savvy? A graduate of Centreville High School in northern Virginia, Blair went to the University of Maryland, but never graduated. Yet, at 23, he was hired by the Times. At 26, he was covering national stories, though his reputation was atrocious.
Over 42 months, the Times had had to publish 50 "corrections" of Jayson Blair's stories. A year ago, metropolitan editor Jonathan Landman sent an e-mail to all newsroom administrators. "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now." Yet nothing was done, and soon Blair was being granted plum assignments once given only to the most experienced of reporters.
Who hired Jayson Blair? Who promoted him? Who protected him? And why? Like the purloined letter, the answer is right in front of us. Jayson Blair is black. The New York Times worships at the altar of "diversity." So, Times editors cut him all the slack he needed. And Jayson Blair knew how to snooker "progressives."
Had Jayson Blair been a white graduate of Bob Jones, he would not have lasted past his second correction. Indeed, he would never have been hired. But he was, because Jayson Blair was exactly the right color for the New York Times' guilty conscience.
The Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times is a case of the chickens of affirmative action coming home to roost.
Blair, however, will likely become the Lt. Calley of this atrocity. For higher-ups at the Times are already covering up for one another. Though Gerald Boyd, an African-American editor, promoted Blair, despite his problems, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is already exonerating his editors: "The person who did this is Jayson Blair. ... Let's not begin to demonize our executives."
Raines himself, a caricature of the guilt-ridden liberal Southerner, was asked by NPR if Blair's race had anything to do with his remarkable rise. "No," said Raines, "I do not see it as illustrating that point." He may be the only one who doesn't.
Raines and his co-editors have made the voice of the American establishment an object of mockery and ridicule in Middle America.
Somewhere, today, Spiro Agnew is smiling.
--snip--
"The younger [extremely gay, my comment]Sulzberger has been described in the media as "brash" and even as an activist. Currently, he serves on a committee of the Newspaper Publishers Association aimed at combating racism and sexism in the workplace. He made sure that sexual orientation was part of the program of a recent conference on diversity that he held at the Times for newspaper publishers from around the country. It was under Sulzberger's supervision that Gerald Boyd, an African-American, was brought in as metropolitan editor. "Boyd has a genuine interest in the disenfranchised," observes a Times staffer. "When Boyd was told about the importance to the gay community of the Julio Rivera murder trial [in which the victim, a Queens man, was gay-bashed], he made sure that it was given the same prominence that the Howard Beach racial murder trial was given."
And it was under Sulzberger's supervision that openly gay and outspoken Adam Moss, the former editor of the now-defunct New York weekly 7 Days, was brought in under contract as a consultant to the Times. While it is unclear what future the Times and Moss have together, some say that Moss, who has Lelyveld's ear, has been very vocal and has had an effect in the newsroom regarding gay issues.
--snip--
Is there some homosexual connection between Sulzberger, Boyd and Blair?
I know that at the New York Times owned Boston Globe that a mjority of the editorial staff is homosexual.
Is the same thing going on at the Times?
Maybe we should begin refering to it as the Old Grey Queen.
Nothing on Blair being gay comes up either.
But Pinchy Sulzberger and Raines are extremely pro gay, leading the way to hire lots of gays, leading the way with gay "wedding" announcements etc etc.
Couple that with the real result of American public education (oh, the tax dollars over the decades), that is, in general, people are not taught to reason for themselves ... they are spoon-fed by the likes of the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, ... and those "talking heads" on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS, ...
And, folks, that ain't good!
Oh wow... that whole piece you posted really explains the roots of the NYT jounalistic activism today.
Someone from NYT management gave a talk at a Gay Rights meeting and assured his listeners that Gay issues would continue to be pushed at the Times, because something like 7 out of the 9 people at the paper who make the decisions about what gets into the NYT are gay.
Are you suggesting that Blair is gay? I've seen no evidence or claim along those lines.
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Schadenfreude |
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