Media watchers were in an uproar last week with the news that a New York Times reporter, one Jayson Blair, had fabricated stories that were subsequently published in the newspaper.
“How could this happen at the most rigorously edited newspaper in the world,” asked Times columnist William Safire on May 12, a day after the newspaper published a front page story and four inside pages of material that revealed and documented Blair’s journalistic fraud, fabrication and plagiarism.
How indeed, and at the New York Times of all places? In journalism circles, that paper is considered by many to be the pinnacle in reportage.
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The paper has now dedicated itself to regaining public confidence through rigorous internal investigations to find out how such a thing could have happened and how readers and staff can be assured it will never happen again.
Blair has resigned, saying he is “struggling with personal issues,” the Times reported. Indeed.
Various editors familiar with Blair’s work over a four-year career with the paper were aware of his high error rate and aggressive yet careless journalistic style, but the word wasn’t communicated well enough to produce action, the Times story suggested.
If such a subversion of journalistic principles can happen at the mighty Times, can it happen elsewhere? The incident likely gives pause to any editor or reporter.
After reading the Times’ coverage about the lies and why they weren’t discovered sooner, we can conclude the Producer has some safeguards that the Times did not, although the reverse is likely true too.
Of course, we have 22 reporters and editors, as opposed to the Times’ 375, so the comparison is hardly apples to apples.
But for example, Blair filed expense reports from cities he never visited. He wrote fabricated “eye-witness” details into his stories, yet no one called the paper to say Blair had never met with them or been in their homes or offices.
Producer readers, on the other hand, have never been too intimidated to call the paper with story ideas or questions or criticisms. That’s one of the things that keeps the newspaper on track.
And if a news story dateline is Flaxcombe or Three Hills or Treherne , you can be sure the reporter was actually there. Most of the town would probably know it too.
The thing this case teaches us is that the news gathering process and the protection of credibility requires constant vigilance.
