Businessweek: How Can The New York Times Be Worth So Little?

Frank, I think the disappointment about the Jayson Blair fiasco isn't just the bad apple who wrote the faulty/fabricated/plagiarized stories. It's the systematic failure of the paper's chain of command that allowed it to happen. The Times is supposed to be thorough. These kinds of things aren't supposed to happen to a paper that takes so much pride in getting its facts right.

Blair kept getting kicked up the chain despite red flags at every stop along the way. That's more than just his failings as a writer. That's the entire organization failing to recognize a problem and dealing with it. THAT hurt the credibility of the paper more than any one thing Blair wrote.

Also, Frank, it's not just about Blair. (I should point out that our right-wing poster should pay special attention to this). I think the reporting of Judith Miller and Michael Gordon on Iraq WMDs and her involvement in the Plame affair caused similar deterioration to the brand name.

In both instances, the paper looked very reactionary in a profound way.

Part of the Times problem is that the expectations for it are very high. You would shake your head in resigned disappointment if you heard that a student at a state college couldn't find Cuba on a map. But you would be outraged and disgusted if a student at Harvard couldn't find it. Harvard is supposed to be elite and with that status comes responsibility.

That's sort of the psychology behind the reaction to things like Blair and Miller. The Times is held in high esteem but it has to pay for that high esteem.

 

I don't know if you are a writer who isn't in the office much, but if you've ever spent much time inside a newsroom and haven't seen major systemic failures, I don't know what to tell you except that I've seen some bad shit. Again, I fully understand why the public is stunned. But seeing journalists express shock strikes me as incredibly naive. In some cases this kind of thing is due to a lack of clairvoyance on the part of top managers, in some cases it is top managers wanting someone to be a star so badly that they are blind to what will become obvious in hindsight, in some cases the managers are less competent than they initially appear, and in rare instances the top newsroom management is corrupt and dishonest and covers up shit. Not every paper comes clean about it like the NYT did.

 

But weren't there NYTers who complained about Blair's ascension and Raines continually putting him on the pedestal because they knew Blair's work was questionable and potentially damaging? Raines was wearing the blinders on that one, primarily.

Miller and the WMD stories IMO trumped the Blair situation, though, in regard to credibility and integrity. Blair was an aberration largely forgotten by the public. Miller's WMD pieces, the Plame situation and all that entanglement will linger and be harmful for much longer.

 

Criminy, Blair was 4-5 years and a dozen Pulitzers ago.

Funny how the righties swoop to Blair but tiptoe around Judith Miller as a possible reason for the "zero credibility."

 

That's ludicrous, Michael.
The Democrat party's approach to economics went out in 1916. I don't care how much I make, there's no way I'm buying into their simplistic -- or socialistic -- notion of how an economy should run. Maybe I did when I was 22, but it didn't take much time of being in the working world to understand that relying on the government to make sure everybody gets a square deal was going to ensure that no one did.

 

While I'm not ready to buy into Blair's being "forgotten" . . .

The rest of this is WFW.

 

The point, Frank, is that the Times is held to a higher standard than most papers BY THE PUBLIC. The point I made is their issues with Blair and Miller hurt their brand name. We, as journalists, can commiserate with them and look at our own staffs and say "that could have been us (although, I really don't look back on any staff I've ever been on and remember a Jayson Blair on it)." The reality, however, is that it's the public you sell papers to.

In that context, the comment made that the Blair fiasco may have led to a circulation decline is valid. That's not to say we can't sympathize or relate to the Times plight. But, as they say, it is what it is. You have a very public and very humiliating episode like Blair or Miller and it'll hurt your brand.

 

What is the Democrat Party?

 

The opposite of the Republic Party?

 

I see nothing particularly democratic about the party, so I decline to use that term.

 

Well, bully for you then, Rush.

 

You're welcome, Karl.