Journalist's sins not an issue of race

Miami Herald ^ | May 17, 2003 | Leonard Pitts

[Cincinatus' Wife]

You can't have it both ways..

Oh yes you can but you have to start instilling guilt early on. Public schools educators are doing their best to instill guilt on our children.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[mhking]

Blair was wrong, period. Didn't matter that he was black. The secondary crime in this (yes, there's more than one!) was that he was treated with kid gloves because he was black. Everyone keeps trying to make the two into one. They are mutually exclusive of each other.

What Blair did was just plain wrong. No one disputes that. It wouldn't matter if he was black, white, red, green or blue. It still would have been wrong.

The secondary issue was not Blair's fault. That fault lies directly with the editors and publisher of the Times. As opposed to treating Blair with the same aplomb and impartiality that they do with anyone else, they chose to treat him with politically correct kid gloves. The result is the birds they released coming home to roost.

No, I can't fault Blair for being black - which is what so many folks are going out of their way to do. But I can fault Howell Raines and his cronies for patronizing Blair, and by extension, insulting all the hard-working, well-educated and obviously far more intelligent black journalists and columnists out there.

Blair's name will be the one that goes down in history. Blair will bear the brunt of the ire of people talking about this. But the other culprits will get away with it, as they do every day. The Raines of the world; the politically correct liberal editors will continue to patronize blacks, and look down their noses, oblivious to the larger damage they do every day to black America in general, and black journalists in particular.

If anything, this should be a wake-up call. This should force blacks in America to demand better treatment from the press; it should force blacks to see leftists for the race-baiting scum that they are. The National Association of Black Journalists should be screaming from the rooftops.

But all we hear is more silence. It's so much easier to blame the right as the "Big Bad Boogieman" that seeks to "oppress" black America.

And in a quiet room, as he sips from a cup of coffee while reading about the Boogieman, Jesse Jackson smiles knowingly.

---

Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

[M Kehoe]

Good rant.

Ya know what's odd? Like K-Goodwin, Barnacle, Jeraldo, Arnette, etc., they all come back somehow. Face time, books, heck they still write for newspapers and magazines. You watch, Blair will make money off of this as soon as he is released from the ward.

5.56mm

[Luis Gonzalez]

Hear, hear!!!

[Liz]

Brilliant insights. Extraordinarily cogent remarks. The best deconstruction of the Blair debacle in print.

(Yeah, I'm an mhking fan, bigtime.)

[gitmo]

I think the focus of the story should be the cruelty of Affirmative Action. The Times hired a young man who was unqualified simply because he is black. Management noted he was making many mistakes that beginners make, yet they repeatedly promoted him and gave him more visible assignments.

Blair did not have the skillset to succeed, and basically had 3 choices. (1) He could resign, and take an entry-level position at a paper where he could learn the trade. (2) He could flounder and fail. (3) He could cheat, and fabricate stories that he was unable to obtain legitimately.

Blair failed the test. He should have chosen option 1. But he elected to go with the worst choice. His "career" was a fraud.

But the management of the Times set this young man up for failure and disgrace by way of their Affirmative Action policies. They should be ashamed, and should abandon this cruel and destructive policy before more peoples' lives are destroyed.

[MHGinTN]

After the very large failure to hold professional journalistic standards and insure fourth estate responsibility, the Times has--far down the list of insidious societal engineering behaviors--proven the left's brand of racism ... 'treat a black journalist differently because he's not quite equal with the white journalists'. THAT is the disgusting truth of the liberal left's racism. By adopting the attitude that Blair was somehow deserving of special treatment as a less able journalist, thus they lowered their standards, the Times has insulted the hardworking, more than able, and imminently qualified other black journalists in this nation! Such 'caring' racists those leftists, don'tcha know!

[alethia]

Mhking,

You hit the nail on the head in your commentary.

[RAT Patrol]

Applause!!!

No, I can't fault Blair for being black - which is what so many folks are going out of their way to do. But I can fault Howell Raines and his cronies for patronizing Blair, and by extension, insulting all the hard-working, well-educated and obviously far more intelligent black journalists and columnists out there.

EXACTLY!

[jmaroneps37]

If you reach down to try to pet a snake and the snake bites you, who's fault is it?

[billhilly]

Well said.

[Howlin]

More good news: I just heard on MSNBC that Al Sharpton got FIVE STANDING OVATIONS in Iow at their union Town Hall forum!

[longtermmemmory]

The problem was that the left did not see the lying and cheating and plagerizing as a problem because it was advancing a political agenda. (the race was the exuse to give him the 50 strikes)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

They're cult-like.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

Exactly, Howlin!
"So apparently, Jayson Blair's biggest crime is not that he cheated and misled. It's that he cheated and misled while black..."

Wrong on both accounts: Blair's biggest crime IS that he cheated, lied, and stole (let's not forget those phoney expense reports). The NY Times biggest crime is that it aided/abetted and allowed that cheating to continue simply because he was black. It's very clear, no matter how the libs try to spin it.

[RAT Patrol]

And if you don't think the weight of that is felt by every black woman and man in the newsroom, you're kidding yourself. Just Wednesday, the managing editor of The Times, who is black, had to defend himself against charges he had mentored Blair. Mentored.

I've frequently said that to be a black professional is to be always on probation, every day expected to prove that you belong. People always ask me what I mean. This is what I mean. This, exactly.

And affirmative action is to blame. Without it, Blair's race would not be a factor. Pitts wants the benefits of racial distinction without the accountability. Shame on him.

[demosthenes the elder]

we are owed this... as a mere appetizer!

[demosthenes the elder]

very well put.