Cracking Under Dateline Pressure

What do the Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg scandals have in common? Besides featuring New York Times Editor Howell Raines' former newsroom pets, the suspendable reporting offenses both involved fudging the concept of "datelines," those little all-caps geography indicators at the beginning of articles. "Month after month, year after year, Rick Bragg said, his mission was to 'go get the dateline,' even when that meant leaning heavily on the reporting of others," Howard Kurtz reports today. Maybe the Grey Lady needs to open up a few more bureaus in flyover country.

Comments

[tim]

Why hasn't anybody explored the double-dipping explanation for the Jayson Blair fiasco? I'm assuming he was submitting expense reports for all those cities he wasn't visiting. Maybe the pressmen's union could use this as proof that they need to prevent T&E abuse by raising reporters' salaries, the way they have to keep giving cops raises to stop them from taking bribes.

[T. Hartin]

Apparently, Jayson wasn't submitting false expense reports (at least none have been revealed, and they would make a much better pretext for firing him than any of the others offered to date). This just makes the slovenly supervision and editing at the NYT even more appalling - apparently, no one "connected the dots" and noticed that he was filing stories from places that never showed up on his expenses.

[Phil Winsor]

What!! Howell Raines doubt the word of one of his intrepid star reporters?? Not a chance!!

Besides, that involves checking actual concrete facts. As we know, in the NYT small world,facts don't really matter. All that matters is the intent to "do good for mankind"-- excuse me, whatever Raines thinks is for the good of mankind.

(Substitute US for mankind above)

[Richard Aubrey]

No.
We do not want those people in flyover country.

[Michael Levy]

apparently, no one "connected the dots" and noticed that he was filing stories from places that never showed up on his expenses.

It's not that they didn't notice, it's that they didn't care. Remember, according to Bragg, using the work of stringers was considered standard operating procedure.

[Dan]

I still don't understand what all the fuss is about.
Jayson Blair knew what his editors wanted to hear and so he made it up and turned it in. Surprise! They liked it.
An "ethical" reporter knows what the editors want to hear and so he goes out and chases down facts which agree with the editor's biases. Facts which do not agree with the editor's biases are ignored. The reporter writes a story the editor likes.
In both cases, the editor's biases control the form and content of the story. A reporter who writes a true story the editors do not want to read will not be published.
I suppose that the insistence that a quote must have actually been spoken by a real live person does provide at least some limits on a reporter's creativity. Unfortunately, the reality is that you can't depend on the NYT or any other paper to do much more than regurgitate biases. That was true before the Blair Affair and will be true long after Jayson Blair is forgotten.

[Dulabaum Nina]

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DATE: 01/20/2004 02:15:04
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