Here’s an email I just got from a former Bragg intern, who thinks the New York Times reporter has gotten a bum rap. For fairness’ sake, here’s the text:
I was Rick’s intern during the Spring of 2002 here in New Orleans. As someone who hopes to go into journalism, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such a gifted writer.
As Rick’s intern, I would receive a call from him a couple of times each month about a story he was working. He’d have me do some background research and do a few interviews, mostly with peripheral people to the story. I would call and email him with my information in whatever city he was in working the story. When he filed his stories, I’d read through each one eagerly, hoping to spot a morsel I was able to get. Occasionally I would find a reference, and once or twice I even saw a quote I gathered. Imagine that, one sentence of something I did… in the New York Times! Usually there wasn’t much of a sign of the work I’d done, and that was okay with me. But, his stories always surprised me… how he got the details and the quotes from the people that really mattered. How they opened up to him. How he shaped and colored the story, how it jumped off the page and came to life. I’m not someone with stars in my eyes. I just recognize what a gifted reporter and writer he is. And he wasn’t making it up. Many don’t like the fact that he’s so good, but they’ve never been able to prove he lied. They never will.
You’ve painted him as a low life, abusive jerk – allegations that couldn’t be further from the truth. He never ripped me off or mistreated me. Yoder has never made such a claim. It was clear from the beginning that the internship was unpaid, and that the NY Times would not give bylines or credits to interns or stringers. It wasn’t Rick’s policy, it was the Times. If I had a problem with that I wouldn’t have accepted the position. What I got out of it was valuable experience researching and doing interviews for a top reporter. I never liked doing interviews all that much, but the experience working for Rick made me much more comfortable with the process. After all, isn’t this what internships are for? To help us people hoping to be journalists to get experience that will get us a job and make us better at what we do?
All of that to say that the Florida oyster story is by all accounts, an aberration from the norm. I’ve heard from another one of Rick’s interns that his tasks were pretty much the same as mine. There are no other charges that he relied on a stringer to this extent, and evidence points to the fact that he didn’t intend to when he started work on the story about water usage. Yeah, looking back, that decision wasn’t a great one for him. But it’s also negligent not to look at the NY Times official policy that prevented Yoder’s credit on the story (a credit he has said he never expected or even asked for). It’s also negligent not to acknowledge that news organizations (both print and broadcast) and blogs like yours, rely on legwork of others. That Wall Street Journal piece did an excellent job discussing this, using examples like the AP and magazines such as Newsweek and Time. They credit their workers, and haven’t run into this problem.
Rick has been working at the NY Times since 1994, and of course Raines wasn’t the editor then. Maybe he is one of the current editor’s favorites, but that favoritism would’ve had to have spanned various editorships to explain some sort of special treatment or conspiracy. Clearly, using interns and stringers in the manner in which he typically used them is a standard practice in various media, and hasn’t been frowned upon by the higher-ups.
Sincerely,
Erin Williamson
In my defense, I haven’t characterized Bragg’s character in this way. I don’t know him from Adam. I’ve merely characterised his reporting methods. They remain dubious, to my mind, however kind or supportive he was to young and impressionable interns.
The Dish 