Jack Shafer, in an attempt to defend Howell Raines, dredges up from the past my own experiences as an editor with Ruth Shalit almost a decade ago. Yes, there sure were problems, although the case was a good deal more complicated (and strange) than Shafer alleges. It was about a series of incidents when Shalit interpolated shards of boilerplate newspaper prose from others into her own stories. It took us a while to realize what was going on; but as soon as we figured out the problem, we corrected, exposed, apologized and closely monitored Ruth to prevent further errors. I wanted to give her a chance to recover. When further errors emerged, she took leave. Soon after, I quit. I still regret not handling it better. I was on a book tour when the affair first emerged and didn’t focus on the issue or realize its seriousness soon enough. I definitely screwed up. I apologize again, all these years later. And that experience led me to sympathize with and endorse Raines’ initial response to the matter (before the full extent of the affair became known last Sunday). That said, comparing Shalit’s errors to the vast, conscious fraud of the Blair or Glass cases seems to me to be a very big stretch. Shafer’s editor, Jake Weisberg, explains the difference. This is from the City Paper of four years ago:
Jacob Weisberg, a columnist for Slate, left the New Republic in 1994 after a brief period as Shalit’s colleague. He thinks she got screwed. “I’m sorry she isn’t going to get a second chance. I think the Steve Glass thing just sort of snowballed onto her when, in fact, they had nothing to do with each other … It’s like comparing a parking ticket to a war crime,” he says, adding, “The punishment didn’t fit the crime. I think there was a lot of piling on.”
I agree with Jake, although I think, in retrospect, my own punishment was not severe enough. Ruth took the brunt of the criticism but I deserved to take more. But does that make the current Blair meltdown at the most prestigious institution in American journalism any less significant? Or my arguments about it any less valid?
The Dish 