| Philadelphia Inquirer
May 13, 2003 American Rhythms / American tragedy in the making
by Jane Eisner
Last year, the New York Times was showered with a record seven Pulitzer Prizes, fortifying its place on the Mount Olympus of journalism - a spot so close to the gods of our profession that we mere mortals were dizzy from the thought.
The newspaper not only reported on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brilliantly, but it also helped a shattered nation heal with the simple, evocative "Portraits of Grief," a collaborative effort by Times reporters that was published daily for months.
One reporter on the metropolitan staff excused from the painstaking work of writing the portraits was Jayson Blair - an exemption that seemed justified, considering that he had informed high-ranking editors of a cousin killed in the Pentagon attack.
But Blair is not related to the person who died. The revelation of this
deception, and scores of other times that he lied, misled, fabricated and plagiarized, led to an extraordinary public accounting and apology on the front page of Sunday's Times.
This is a Greek tragedy in the making. It is more than "a huge black eye," as the Times' publisher so inelegantly said in Sunday's story. (Blair is black.) It is a damning indictment of the best in American journalism, one that should concern anyone who believes that thriving, credible newspapers are essential to democracy.
This sorry tale raises uncomfortable questions about why large organizations - be they the Times, Enron or NASA - don't hear the whistles blown by truthtellers from within. And the meteoric rise and fall of this young, ambitious African American must cause us to reexamine how a fealty to racial diversity can get in the way of honest
assessments of character and performance.
For four years at the Times, Blair made mistakes, turned in sloppy work, acted unreliably and exhibited all the hallmarks of a hungry journalist with more ambition than actual accomplishment. The Times' investigation discovered that of the 73 reports Blair filed since October as a roving national correspondent, 38 had proven unreliable.
(A Boston Globe report yesterday confirms that Blair left a similar trail when he worked there.)
I'd like to believe that anyone with a track record like that would be out the door quicker than you can spell "deadline."
Yet the charming, charismatic Virginia native - who implied that he was graduated from college when he wasn't - managed to advance despite unmistakable warnings from key editors. Warnings don't get more direct than the blunt note metropolitan editor Jonathan Landman wrote last year: "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now."
The Times' exhaustive mea culpa glossed over how institutional awareness of race affected Blair's quick rise. His promotions were championed by Gerald Boyd, now the Times' managing editor, who also is African American, in the context of a newsroom eager to become younger and more diverse.
"They're in institutional denial about the role that racial double standards and careerist anxiety played in this," says William McGowan, author of Coloring the News.
The pity is that this story will cast aspersions on all diversity programs when they are most needed. Only 12 percent of newsrooms are minority, a poor reflection of the society they cover. As many journalists of color leave the profession every year as join it.
But the thing that mystifies and saddens me the most is that no one from the public dared call to complain about Blair's repeated forays into fiction-writing. He made up quotes by a serviceman injured in Iraq and pretended to have interviewed the father of rescued POW Jessica Lynch.
Yet these people, and many others, felt so cynical about or disconnected from the press that they never pointed out the falsehoods. It took the editor of another newspaper to finally flag Blair's deceptions.
As Harvard media analyst Alex Jones is quoted as saying: "They didn't say, 'Holy cow, this is somebody who is clearly unscrupulous.' Instead, their response was to shrug their shoulders and say, 'Hey, what did you expect?' This is a great indictment of the American media."
Such is the disturbing legacy of Jayson Blair.
Contact columnist Jane Eisner at 215-854-4530 or jeisner@phillynews.com |
