Conghaileach
5th June 2003, 14:45
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 29, 2003
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: INVENTING THE "NEWS"
ob Herbert, the only Black columnist at the New York Times, wrote on
May 19: "I've seen drunks, incompetents and out-and-out lunatics in the
newsrooms I've passed through over the years. I've seen plagiarizers,
fiction writers and reporters who felt it was beneath them to show up
for work at all. ... Most of these rogues, scoundrels and miscreants
were white because most of the staffers in America's mainstream
newsrooms are white. What I haven't seen in all these years was the
suggestion that any of these individuals fouled up--or were put into
positions where they could foul up--because they were white."
He was commenting on the firing of Jayson Blair, a reporter who had
invented much of the material he wrote. Herbert and other African
Americans working for the newspaper are near the boiling point because
of the suggestion that Blair's misdeeds were condoned or overlooked by
editors because he is Black.
"So let's be real," wrote Herbert. "Discrimination in the newsroom--in
hiring, in the quality of assignments and in promotions--is a much more
pervasive problem than Jayson Blair's aberrant behavior. A Black
reporter told me angrily last week, 'After hundreds of years in America,
we are still on probation.'"
The Times management provoked this response from its own employees when
it broke the Blair story in an unprecedented 14,000-word article that
took up an entire page. The implication was that Blair's actions were
extraordinary and had sullied the sterling reputation of the newspaper.
Extraordinary? Reporters and editors don't make up the news? We beg to
differ. Here are two examples from the New York Times itself.
The first was a memorable front-page article about the arrival of
UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold at Ndola airport in the Congo's
break-away province of Katanga on Sept. 17, 1961. The reporter vividly
described the scene: African dancers welcoming the diplomat as
representatives of Moise Tshombe, the president, formally greeted him.
The article was pulled in the second edition. Why? Because Hammarskjold
never arrived. His plane had crashed en route and he was dead. The
article had been written and sent in to the newspaper hours before the
event it pretended to chronicle. After that embarrassing incident, the
Times said that its procedures on when stories could be filed would be
changed.
Now for the second, more recent, example. Last Oct. 26, the ANSWER
coalition held an anti-war demon stra tion in Washington, D.C. It took
out permits for 20,000 marchers. A huge crowd turned out, estimated
between 100,000 and 200,000. The next day the New York Times ran a short
report on page eight saying that just "thousands" had marched, "fewer
people ... than organizers had said they hoped for."
Other newspapers, like the Wash ing ton Post and Los Angeles Times,
reported 100,000 marchers. People who had been in Washington flooded the
New York Times with calls of complaint. Finally, without admitting that
its first story was wrong, the newspaper printed a second article on
Oct. 30 that said the protest "drew 100,000 by police estimates and
200,000 by organizers', forming a two-mile wall of marchers around the
White House."
Was the original reporter to blame? Or the higher-ups? Lynette
Clemetson, who wrote the first article, called Democracy Now! host Amy
Goodman to explain. "She told us she had pitched a broader story on the
protests, and had predicted it would be a big march, a turning point in
the anti-war coverage," recalled Good man. "She said she arrived at the
protest in the early morning, when the number of people there was still
low. The editors pulled her off the story to work on a story on the
Washington-area sniper. In the afternoon, as the numbers of protesters
swelled, she called in a corrected estimate to her editor. That
correction never made it into the article. She said she received
numerous calls from people angry about the coverage, which she referred
to the editors. She said she is glad people called to complain." (Quoted
in the December 2002 issue of Extra!Update, the bimonthly newsletter of
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
Keep those complaints coming.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected] Subscribe wwnews-
[email protected] Unsubscribe [email protected] Support the
voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
Reprinted from the May 29, 2003
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: INVENTING THE "NEWS"
ob Herbert, the only Black columnist at the New York Times, wrote on
May 19: "I've seen drunks, incompetents and out-and-out lunatics in the
newsrooms I've passed through over the years. I've seen plagiarizers,
fiction writers and reporters who felt it was beneath them to show up
for work at all. ... Most of these rogues, scoundrels and miscreants
were white because most of the staffers in America's mainstream
newsrooms are white. What I haven't seen in all these years was the
suggestion that any of these individuals fouled up--or were put into
positions where they could foul up--because they were white."
He was commenting on the firing of Jayson Blair, a reporter who had
invented much of the material he wrote. Herbert and other African
Americans working for the newspaper are near the boiling point because
of the suggestion that Blair's misdeeds were condoned or overlooked by
editors because he is Black.
"So let's be real," wrote Herbert. "Discrimination in the newsroom--in
hiring, in the quality of assignments and in promotions--is a much more
pervasive problem than Jayson Blair's aberrant behavior. A Black
reporter told me angrily last week, 'After hundreds of years in America,
we are still on probation.'"
The Times management provoked this response from its own employees when
it broke the Blair story in an unprecedented 14,000-word article that
took up an entire page. The implication was that Blair's actions were
extraordinary and had sullied the sterling reputation of the newspaper.
Extraordinary? Reporters and editors don't make up the news? We beg to
differ. Here are two examples from the New York Times itself.
The first was a memorable front-page article about the arrival of
UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold at Ndola airport in the Congo's
break-away province of Katanga on Sept. 17, 1961. The reporter vividly
described the scene: African dancers welcoming the diplomat as
representatives of Moise Tshombe, the president, formally greeted him.
The article was pulled in the second edition. Why? Because Hammarskjold
never arrived. His plane had crashed en route and he was dead. The
article had been written and sent in to the newspaper hours before the
event it pretended to chronicle. After that embarrassing incident, the
Times said that its procedures on when stories could be filed would be
changed.
Now for the second, more recent, example. Last Oct. 26, the ANSWER
coalition held an anti-war demon stra tion in Washington, D.C. It took
out permits for 20,000 marchers. A huge crowd turned out, estimated
between 100,000 and 200,000. The next day the New York Times ran a short
report on page eight saying that just "thousands" had marched, "fewer
people ... than organizers had said they hoped for."
Other newspapers, like the Wash ing ton Post and Los Angeles Times,
reported 100,000 marchers. People who had been in Washington flooded the
New York Times with calls of complaint. Finally, without admitting that
its first story was wrong, the newspaper printed a second article on
Oct. 30 that said the protest "drew 100,000 by police estimates and
200,000 by organizers', forming a two-mile wall of marchers around the
White House."
Was the original reporter to blame? Or the higher-ups? Lynette
Clemetson, who wrote the first article, called Democracy Now! host Amy
Goodman to explain. "She told us she had pitched a broader story on the
protests, and had predicted it would be a big march, a turning point in
the anti-war coverage," recalled Good man. "She said she arrived at the
protest in the early morning, when the number of people there was still
low. The editors pulled her off the story to work on a story on the
Washington-area sniper. In the afternoon, as the numbers of protesters
swelled, she called in a corrected estimate to her editor. That
correction never made it into the article. She said she received
numerous calls from people angry about the coverage, which she referred
to the editors. She said she is glad people called to complain." (Quoted
in the December 2002 issue of Extra!Update, the bimonthly newsletter of
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
Keep those complaints coming.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected] Subscribe wwnews-
[email protected] Unsubscribe [email protected] Support the
voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)