Howell Raines; Back from the Boneyard

Seeing Howell Raines, disgraced former editor of the NY Times, preach about honesty in journalism (WashPost Op-Ed, 14 March) is a little like listening to Harry Reid (D-Nevada) trying to sell gambling and prostitution as destination resorts. In 2003, Raines, you may recall, was encouraged to spend more time “fly fishing” after his ace reporter, Jayson Blair, was exposed as a fraud and a cheat. Numerous staffers had raised alarms about Blair’s work, some of it on the DC beltway sniper story, but Raines would hear no criticism about his affirmative action protégé - facts be damned.

The Blair fiasco was a bizarre echo of a similar incident at the Washington Post two decades earlier when a Ben Bradlee protégé cooked the books about a young black heroin addict in the District of Columbia. Bradlee nominated Janet Cooke for a reporting Pulitzer which she won. When Cooke’s fiction was exposed, the reporter and the prize went up in smoke; both consumed by the white heat of truth.

The ugly side of affirmative action was the real story behind both incidents. Two white editors, afflicted by a kind soft bigotry, were reluctant to use the same standards of journalism with minorities and women that are applied to white males. Indeed, in both cases, black reporters were all too eager to manufacture racial stereotypes; and two politically correct editors were all too willing to sacrifice integrity on the altar of ethnic or gender immunity.

Now Raines, dripping with trout stream indignation, laments the standards at FOX and blasts Roger Ailes as a kind of newsroom ogre. The irony, and personal animus, here has a sickly sweet sent of mendacity - leavened with envy. FOX and internet journals are thriving while archaic outlets like the Times and the Post are sinking, stuck in the muck of a tedious patronizing ideology. Raines, like the fictional Colonel Jessep, “can’t stand the truth.”

Traditional journalism is going under because it is still printing a product that fewer and fewer customers want to buy or read. The dinosaurs are walking the plank; an aging species that can not see that adaptation might be as simple as providing another point of view. Mr. Raines, and like minded editors, makes the inevitable, and enviable, success of FOX possible. Rupert Murdoch should send Howell Raines a thank-you note, a copy of Pinocchio, and a box of hand-tied trout flies.

Dear Fred

Fred Hiatt
Editor
The Washington Post

Dear Fred,

I see that the latest survey of mainstream customers shows another decline in readership. Before the slide becomes terminal, you might want to consider the role that agnotology has come to play in many newsrooms. Take the recent piece by Matt Miller (31 March) in the Post, a transparent series of White House talking points masquerading as analysis. Worst still was the editorial by Jessica Valenti (21 February), an essay that was flawed in fact and logic. Ironically, in the shadow of Janet Cooke, fact checking, especially on the editorial page at the Post has gotten worse, not better. Indeed, Ms Valenti's essay is a classic piece of journalistic agnotology; not merely a wrong-headed opinion, but a swirl of evidence designed to produce a false narrative or perpetuate ignorance. An analysis of Ms. Valenti's nonsense was published in FSM earlier this month. See previous post or:

(http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5998/pub_detail.asp.)

You can continue to argue, like your two predecessors, that you are victims of internet competition, technology, or shifting reading habits; yet, at some point you have to consider the quality of your product. Quality matters! You also have to ask why other news outlets are flourishing while you continue to wilt. I'm not talking about featuring conservatives like Will or Krauthammer for token balance, but rather an examination of the agenda embedded in the tone, politics, and quality of reporting and analysis. The Post, the NY Times (especially under Hal Raines), and many urban newspapers have regressed from printing the "first draft of history" to publishing agnotology - the last draft of truth. As a practical matter, you might also want to take a business clue from the competition. The best model for the information age is often something as simple as another point of view; and a judicious mix of fact and argument.