Jayson's Gift to Journalism

By TAD BARTIMUS

In papers all over this country, editors are firing off memos about double-checking anonymous sources, attributing assistance from stringers and maintaining racial diversity in the newsroom. In a post-Jayson Blair frenzy, American journalism is gnawing away at itself like a wolf chewing off its foot to escape a trap. But upsetting the newsroom status quo is a good thing, and overdue.

The pressure to rise in a business where only the top echelon is well-paid and has a shot at the big prizes has fostered a "don't rock the boat" environment -- from Spokane, Wash., to Washington, D.C. Despite endless focus-group navel gazing, business-as-usual has been maintained far too long.

That's how New York Times editor Howell Raines and his deputy Gerald Boyd got duped by Blair. In accordance with the corporate culture, they turned a blind eye to his cutting corners; making too many mistakes; and jumping the line. It wasn't race that emboldened the young African-American reporter, it was acceptance by his bosses that he was somehow entitled, and therefore, should not be held to the high standards of a journeyman journalist: first, get it right.

While plenty of writers and editors have recently discussed the importance of racial and gender diversity in a newsroom, few have underscored the necessity of real-life experience as a prerequisite for reliable reporting and ethical practices.
Quality journalism is regularly compromised because the managers and editors of metro newspapers value grad school degrees and big-name internships over a journeyman's resume of covering the local beat on the way to the metro and national desks.

I came of age in journalism when characters peopled newsrooms. The managing editor never wore a tie and his assistant was a high school dropout who'd learned about human nature by circling the globe as a deckhand on a freighter.

These real people with authentic pasts enriched newspapers because they viewed the world from a variety of angles. And that's the kind of experience newspapers need in order to cover their community. It's also the background required to know if someone is telling you the truth, whether you're a writer quoting a back alley source or an editor working with a young reporter.

On paper, the 27-year-old Blair looked good. He had been editor of his newspaper at the University of Maryland and then worked his way up from intern to correspondent at The Boston Globe and won plenty of awards along with way. Raines had been a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, the paper's Washington bureau chief and editor of its editorial page. He had a Pulitzer Prize and the confidence of the publisher.

In short, they both possessed impressive professional pedigrees. Except Blair had a lot of loose ends nobody checked and Howell Raines could not manage people. They were on a collision course that ultimately resulted in the firing of Blair, the resignation of Raines and the tarnished reputation of America's greatest newspaper. That was because nobody involved in this newspaper story performed the basic job of a cub reporter: check your facts.

It's time editors and owners stopped chasing prizes and double-digit profits and examined in detail the who, what, when, where how and -- most importantly -- the why of our own profession.

Leaders of the legitimate media, our hometown newspapers as well as The New York Times, do not see themselves as peers of capitalist CEOs, but they are. They spend more time worrying about their bottom line and its accompanying bonus than getting the names of the deceased spelled right on the obituary page.

We have become so caught up in credentials and industry studies that we have lost our ability to humbly and humanely hold a mirror up to the world we cover. I once suggested to an editor who was losing circulation that instead of purchasing another focus group, she should consider hiring smart, curious people from the local community and training them to be journalists. They already know what the big issues are; they just need to learn how to write about them objectively.

Journalism used to be a passion and a calling. For some, it still is. But far too many managers expect their staff to work 60-hour weeks for less money than the sanitation workers who picks up their trash. Far too many publishers are so far out of touch they don't even know when their voice-mail system doesn't work.

If the good that comes out of this scandal is newspapers reconnecting with their primary objective, then Blair has made an enormous contribution to the profession he now disdains.

© 2003 The Women Syndicate

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