The Jayson Blair scandal revealed a lot more about today’s newspaper business than journalists would like to admit.
Sure, Blair showed how stupid editors at even a newspaper as big as The New York Times can be. Columnists from coast to coast have had a field day either assailing or defending affirmative action. And publishers across the land have told editors to scrutinize their hiring policies and personnel-management practices.
But, the fact is, just as blindly, newspapers for years have been following other policies of social engineering that also could devastate their credibility.
Sometime in the late 1980s or the 1990s, editors got the notion that their newspapers were old-fashioned. Journalists thought they weren’t contributing enough to society, or certainly, not raising social “awareness” among the ignorant masses. In the grand scheme of things, journalists mused, there was a much more important role for them to play in world affairs than simply to report current events. The world needed saving, and journalists believed, surely, they should play savior.
No more inverted pyramid, they decided, that’s old hat. No more “just the facts, ma’am” reporting. So long, objectivity.
Shaping public policy — adhering to a leftist agenda — became standard operating procedure at many of the nation’s large newspapers. Some in the newspaper business called it “civic” journalism. Others referred to it as “enterprise” reporting.
Most readers and practitioners of traditional journalism called it propaganda.
The philosophy grew as newspaper conglomerates continued to buy newspapers across the country, and smaller newspapers adopted the liberal agenda. “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” became the battle cry.
Anecdotal leads and dramatic storytelling became the modern journalists’ tools that would effect change and help shape public policy. To ensure their messages would be noticed, journalists decided that no longer should they relegate their opinions to the editorial pages. No sir. The new journalists would parade their prejudices in the news pages — preferably in huge centerpieces on the Front Page.
They measured their achievement by the number of new government programs that could be attributed to their handiwork. To increase their chances of success, reporters badgered politicians to see what the public’s servants intended to do about the grave social injustices the stories had uncovered. Editorials reinforced the newspapers’ lobbying campaigns.
Somehow, though, journalists who ventured into the brave new world had to find a way to assuage their own consciences and mitigate criticism that they were compromising the core principles of their profession. Rationalization allowed journalists to do that. They told themselves and admitted to the public that journalists were no different than ordinary folk; they harbor prejudices, and their work, naturally and inescapably, was bound to reflect their foibles.
Like a sinner half committed to repentance, journalists believed that mere recognition, and admission, of those infractions would appease their own pangs of guilt and silence their critics. Such introspection is commendable. But, as any member of Alcoholics Anonymous will attest, self-analysis is useless unless it’s backed up by sincere, day-to-day commitment to change.
The New York Times, mostly because it had no other choice, confessed its sins. Its executives promised that they would conduct a full review of its hiring policies, its use of anonymous sources, and its procedures to double-check accuracy.
That, alone, is not good enough. The New York Times — and other newspapers that idolize and practice its brand of journalism — must dig deeper if they hope someday to regain any shred of the public’s trust.
They must renounce subjectivity and restore a culture in the newsroom that embraces core journalistic values such as accuracy, integrity, and fairness rather than guile, persuasiveness, and overbearing social consciousness. They must eradicate advocacy from their news pages. Then they must institute systematic procedures that prevent activism from returning.
Blind allegiance to racially based affirmative action triggered the scandal at The New York Times. Howell Raines, its executive editor, admitted as much in a talk to his staff. Because of that allegiance, Raines and other editors at the newspapers allowed, and actually encouraged, Blair to violate traditional journalistic values.
Many other newspaper executives fear they, too, have been following affirmative action’s path toward scandal. They say they have launched internal investigations.
While they’re at it, they might want to investigate and reconsider their radical transformation from being objective conveyors of information to becoming shameless promulgators of propaganda.