Liberal attitudes unite Jayson Blair, NYT

The South End Online ^ | May 27, 2003 | Eric Czarnik

[Timesink]

Liberal attitudes unite Jayson Blair, NYT

Eric Czarnik
South End Columnist

   What is black and white and "read" all over?

   The punch line to this old riddle is, of course, a newspaper. But for the New York Times, the last few weeks have made it's staff and editors "read" with shame.

   Formerly one of the world's most respected newspapers, the Times has been under siege since it was discovered that a certain young, black reporter named Jayson Blair repeatedly lied, fabricated descriptions and made errors in his stories.

   Blair, who was assigned top stories like the Beltway sniper attacks, botched at least 36 of his articles during his five-year stay at the Times. But despite his lack of journalistic integrity, Blair may have more in common with the newspaper's management than what appears on the surface.

   Blair had a laundry list of reasons why he couldn't fulfill the requirements of the job that so many reporters - black and white - have accomplished before him.

   "I was under a lot of pressure," Blair whined to the New York Observer. He said he abused drugs and was sometimes drunk while on assignment - which he implied was his employer's (or society's) fault. "Is the problem the substance you pick up, or do you pick up the substance from the environment you are in?" he asked.

   But his biggest gripe was race.

   "I was black at the New York Times, which is something that hurts you as much as it helps you," he said. Blair accused some of his coworkers of being racists.

   He also taunted many of his former editors, calling them idiots. "They're all so smart, but I was sitting right under their nose fooling them," he said. "If they're so brilliant and I'm such an affirmative-action hire, how come they didn't catch me?"

   Yet some people did catch him. Metro editor Jonathan Landman sent a memo last year saying, "We have got to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now." Landman's advice was ignored.

   Media pundits have argued over how much affirmative action played a role in the Times' imbroglio. One must wonder, given that Blair's resume left much to be desired.

   Newsweek reported last week that he had a reputation for immature office politics as an intern for the Boston Globe. He resigned from the Maryland Diamondback, a campus newspaper, due to plagiarism and dubious sources. Add that to all the opportunities the Times had to fire him, and it seems that something rotten was going on.

   Generally, I don't agree with the philosophy of preferential treatment behind affirmative action. Yet one certainly shouldn't conclude from this case alone that minorities hired under affirmative-action programs will necessarily self-destruct or be unqualified.

   Perhaps the Times' fatal flaw was instead its obsession with "diversity", which was taken to the point of overlooking quality. "Any fetish - any monomaniacal fixation on a single goal, whether the goal is diversity or proper grammar...can be exploited by a pathological rogue looking to game the system," opined the New Republic.

   Presumably, the idea behind "diversity" is that assembling people from different identity groups is a prerequisite for what Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell once described as a "robust exchange of ideas." (Apparently, the diversity of experiences within each individual human being leaves something to be desired.)

   True believers of "diversity" assume that if we "celebrate our differences" in this way, magical things will happen.

   Minority oppression caused by a conspiracy of rich, white males will suddenly disappear.

   Men will beat their swords into plowshares, the lion will lay down with the lamb, and Bambi and Thumper will frolic in the woods happily ever after.

   Unfortunately, these things often don't happen. If diversity happens on its own, all is well.

   But when it is constructed through questionable policies, it often (as in this case) exacerbates racial tensions by drawing attention to the issue of race as opposed to making skin color irrelevant.

   And it has been the pro-diversity pooh-bahs at the Times who have taken the heat. "You have a right to ask if I, as a white man from Alabama, with those convictions, gave him one chance too many by not stopping his appointment to the sniper team. When I look into my heart for the truth of that, the answer is yes," said executive editor Howell Raines to his bitter, angry staffers.

   Both Raines and Blair were unhealthily occupied over issues of race. Raines' white liberal guilt kept him from firing an incompetent individual. Blair's infatuation with blaming his poor performance on racism contributed to his downfall, preventing him from evaluating his own strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

   The media have painted this scandal as a clash of differences: black against white, management versus worker. But when it comes to identifying with politically correct, liberal belief systems, Blair and the New York Times are two peas in a pod, two sides of the same coin.

[Timesink]

I post this simply because it is that rarest of breeds: the conservative college newspaper column.

[Timesink]

Schadenfreude

This is the New York Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.

[martin_fierro]

But for the New York Times, the last few weeks have made it's staff and editors "read" with shame.

Tsk, tsk.