| The Journal News
May 15, 2003 Times scandal puts heat on entire industry
by Phil Reisman It was an astounding sight, one that should live in journalistic infamy.
R.W. "Johnny" Apple, the distinguished chief correspondent of The New York Times, walked out of the troubled newspaper's staff meeting yesterday, and kept walking, hurriedly and without comment, past a pack of notebook-carrying reporters and TV cameramen.
He picked up the pace as he made his way down West 44th Street, declining comment, demurring, saying absolutely nothing about the case of Jayson Blair, the 27-year-old reporter whose four-year record of fraud and deceit was detailed in a mea culpa published on the front page of the Sunday Times.
Apple, a living symbol of fairness and rectitude who has covered stories in 100 countries stretching over a 40-year career, was literally chased to Broadway, where he caught a cab. In the mindless rush, a street vendor wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap was slammed in the head by a camera. It had to hurt because the man screamed the all-purpose curse word and told the cameraman to "get off my property!"
Apple was guilty of nothing, but like all Times employees yesterday, he seemed to be carrying the sins of a young and disturbed reporter on his back. He fled like a federal witness called to testify in a rackets
trial.
Earlier in the afternoon, Times staffers had trickled single file into the extraordinary "town hall" meeting that was held in the lower level
of the Loew's Astor Theater. They had ostensibly come to vent their frustration and question how their bosses could've failed not once, not twice, but several times over, to pull the plug on a pathological liar, a kid whose conduct gave the "Gray Lady" a black eye and robbed her of her priceless credibility.
A kook dressed up in a Saddam Hussein costume heckled the Times employees as they entered the private meeting. He waved a sign at them that said, "Former New York Times reporter will lie for food" and yelled "My name is Howell Raines, and I'm a liar!" (Raines is the newspaper's executive editor.) It got even more surreal later when a guy in a polka-dot clown suit, wig and oversized shoes showed up for apparently no reason other than to be seen.
The employees were mostly grim-faced and, like Apple, ignored questions coming and going. As an event that periodically captured the curiosity of out-of-town tourists, the affair had less levity than a wake or "perp walk."
Among the observers was William McGowan, author of "Coloring The News: How Political Correctness Has Corrupted American Journalism," who maintains that the Blair scandal was an inevitable result of the Times' corrupt "crusade for diversity" and creation of a racial double standard that allowed Blair, a black man, to be promoted to greater and great responsibilities. Because of his controversial views, McGowan is considered a pariah by a generous portion of the liberal press and particularly by The New York Times.
"I took a lot of grief from the Times," he said. "I took a lot of guff. The Times refused to review the book, and they said the reason was it was too critical of them."
McGowan said Blair should've been fired a long time ago. Now, he said, the buck stops at Raines' desk, and for the sake of credibility and integrity he should go, too.
"Because it happened on his watch," McGowan said. "It's the biggest
scandal in the paper's history. And I think if an analogous thing had happened in another institution, he wouldn't have hesitated for a second to call for the head of whoever was charged with steering the ship."
McGowan is right, there.
But don't make the mistake in thinking that the confounding acts of one individual automatically puts the concept of affirmative action on trial. It doesn't. There is probably no principle more noble, more proper, in the newspaper industry today than the quest to staff newsrooms with people who reflect society at large. That's not politically correct. It's right - and it's good business, too.
What's really going on here is that all of us in the press are on trial. And I don't mean just street reporters, front-line editors and columnists. I also mean those who inhabit the executive suites.
When I read last Sunday's piece in the Times, I couldn't help but think of the metro editor, Jonathan Landman, who vainly warned his bosses that Blair was a rotten egg. Metro editors are like air-traffic controllers. They work long hours and endure a great deal of stress. A full year ago, Landman wrote an e-mail message that said, "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now."
Either through incompetence, hubris or denial - or a combination of all three - Landman was ignored by Raines and his subalterns.
This was the disgrace. Journalists are paid to listen, and evidently no one was listening at The Times.
Reach Phil Reisman at preisman@thejournalnews.com or call 914-694-5008. |
