Posted on 06/05/2003 6:15:49 PM PDT by Pokey78
The motto of the New York Times has always been, "All the news that's fit to print". That proud boast rings hollow since America's newspaper of record saw fit to print at least 36 largely fictitious stories by its star reporter, Jayson Blair, whose exposure last month prompted the resignations yesterday of the paper's executive editor, Howell Raines, and his deputy.
Raines, who is a guilt-ridden white liberal from Alabama, indulged Blair, who is 27 and black and had been hired as part of the paper's affirmative action policy, to the point of lunacy.
When editors began to have suspicions about Blair - one even wrote a memo saying: "We have to stop Jayson Blair writing for the Times. Right now" - Raines reacted by sending him to cover the biggest story of the day, the "Beltway Sniper" in Washington. In reality, Blair concocted this and other stories from his New York apartment.
It is proper that Raines, having lost the confidence of his staff, should have resigned on the heels of his protégé. This tragi-comedy matters, because it demonstrates how even a great newspaper - and the New York Times, for all its earnest self-importance, is a great paper - may fall victim to journalistic narcissism.
There is everything to be said for a commitment to objectivity and accuracy, but, when journalists start to believe in their own infallibility, these ideals can be corrupted. At the New York Times, this corruption takes the form of political correctness, which its venerable proprietor, Arthur Sulzberger, and his editors have elevated to a creed.
It was this creed that caused the paper to rewrite a piece by our own Boris Johnson, so that a mocking reference to "Guinea" was altered to read "Chile", because (as an editor admitted), "It is just easier in principle if we don't say anything deprecatory about a black African country".
It was political correctness, too, that blinded Raines to the obvious signs that something was not quite right about Blair. His unexplained absences (he had, it later emerged, been a cocaine addict), his failure to submit expenses for trips all over America, discrepancies in his stories were all overlooked, simply because he was black.
Did turning a blind eye do young Blair any good in the end? Not at all: instead of his pathological behaviour being detected early on and dealt with quietly and sympathetically, he was allowed to dig himself ever deeper into the mire. Then his editor published a 14,000-word correction and apology, going into every detail of the squalid affair.
This grotesque display of breast-beating, too, was a symptom of the paper's culture of narcissism. Its pursuit of "positive" discrimination has damaged the ethnic minorities who are its intended beneficiaries; it has damaged the rest who have been discriminated against; and it has undermined the reputation of the most powerful newspaper in the world.
The moral is that journalists are as liable as anybody else to the hubris of self-righteousness, and to the nemesis of ridicule.
Sad. This casts a shadow on all qualified blacks who have busted their hump to do a good job. Affirmative action is the death knell of blacks in this country.
What a joke! The only "newspaper of record" is The Akashic Records! And this is where future generations will look for truth--certainly not to the distorting, untruthful American "mainstream newsmedia".
"At the New York Times, this corruption takes the form of political correctness, which its venerable proprietor, Arthur Sulzberger, and his editors have elevated to a creed."
Corruption is corruption. Mendacity is mendacity. Propaganda is propaganda.
The only valid purpose of a newspaper is to report and record truth. Anything else is propaganda, and propaganda is mendacity.
"a mocking reference to 'Guinea' was altered to read 'Chile', because (as an editor admitted), 'It is just easier in principle if we don't say anything deprecatory about a black African country'."
This speaks volumes!
The entire American "mainstream newsmedia" is corrupt, mendacious, untrustworthy, and ultimately worthless.
The absence of truth dangerously misleads the public.
So true. Liberals protect 'affirmative action' and at the same time actively insult some Americans with African ancestry if they don't hold with leftist, aka'progressive,' values.
I wonder how many Americans (of any ethnic heritage) know that when President Bush was meeting in Jordan with the leaders of Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Colin Powell was sitting at his right hand and Condoleeza Rice was sitting at his left. The photo of that round table should have been front page across the world.
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