“Would Jason Blair have been “caught” earlier if he had been white?-This is not something a liberal Southerner like Howell Raines would-ever like to admit, but it is a question that must-be asked. Indeed, Raines seems to be-hanging Blair out to dry all by himself-for what MUST be-an institutional problem. Students in my journalism class ask-the right question-right away: “Why wasn’t this pattern SEEN?”-When Terence Smith put that same question to Raines in his interview on the News Hour, Raines-sidestepped-it.-The editing process at the Times, he says,-is multi-layered and designed to ferret out deliberate deception. This does not answer my students’ question. It is juse an excuse.
-Entering this taboo territory of racial cutting-slack would make an interesting story for a journalism review: It would involve interviewing black reporters about-the pressures they may feel under, about the reluctance of white editors to call them to account (especially when they are charmers and suckups as Blair seems to have been), -about special pleading and special deals made for those whom Raines has called – and I paraphrase from Terence Smith’s quote on the News Hour interview – “just the sort of person the Times is looking for” as a reporter.- And it would involve some statistics checking: Has the Times dismissed anyone else with similar or higher records of inaccuracy?-Who?
-You cannot have 1,000 journalists in a building – people trained to sniff out problems – and-MISS this problem unless-there were-some kind of cultural blinkering going on.-
That’s the real soul-searching that needs to go on at the Times. From Raines initial comments, it’s not happening.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.
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The Dish 