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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| AN open letter to my colleagues in the news business |
| 2004-04-25 |
| by Leonard Pitts The silence is getting loud. It’s been nearly four months since the scandal broke. Four months since Jack Kelley, star foreign correspondent for USA Today, was found to have lied his way through his professional life for the last 13 years. He lied about where he had been, what he had seen, whom he had talked to, what they had said. He lied so much I’m only half convinced "Jack Kelley’ is his real name. Yet you, my colleagues, have not asked the most important question: What does this mean for the future of white journalism? Not much, I’m afraid. Unfortunately. Oh, wait... you were talking about their race, not their journalism. My bad. Granted, you’ve pontificated about our damaged credibility. You’ve felled forests with your weighty ruminations about what this portends for the future of our profession. But, evidently cowed by political correctness, you’ve ignored the most vital issues. Did USA Today advance a moderately capable journalist because he was white? Did some white editor mentor him out of racial solidarity even though Kelley was unqualified? In light of this fiasco, should we re-examine the de facto affirmative action that gives white men preferential treatment in our newsrooms? Standard stuff, except he’s substituted "white" for "black." Funny when the racist crap is turned back on itself, ain’t it? Certainly, no one had to beg for these questions to be asked a year ago, when Jayson Blair got his sorry backside in hot water. Blair, as you hardly need to be reminded, was a black reporter who initially came to the New York Times via a slot in an internship program the paper was using to increase newsroom diversity. It turned out that the only diversity Blair represented was that which is to be found between lies and damned lies. Still, some observers felt the circumstances of his hiring were almost as important as the reason for his firing. Columnist Andrew Sullivan claimed Blair got away with snookering the Times because his editors feared offending a black journalist. Columnist Richard Cohen told us Blair enjoyed "favoritism based on race." Jennifer Harper, a reporter for the conservative Washington Times, wrote that the Blair episode made the New York paper a "case study on the effects of affirmative action in the newsroom." A computer search Friday indicates that Sullivan, Cohen and Harper have thus far been silent on the racial dimensions of the Kelley incident. In fairness to those worthies, I’m sure they’re warming up their laptops even as we speak. Uh-huh. Sure they are. While we await the results, let me, in the interest of full disclosure, admit that I didn’t think up today’s column on my own. Rather, it was inspired by remarks Gwen Ifill of PBS So that’s why I missed it made last week at an awards dinner. Truth to tell, though, she only crystallized what I and, I daresay, many other journalists of color have been thinking ever since Kelley’s deceptions were uncovered. Namely, that this is (with apologies to the Four Tops) the same old song. When a white person screws up, it ignites a debate on the screw up. When a black person screws up, it ignites a debate on race. Truer words were never spoken. So, loathe though I am to position myself as a spokesman, I feel confident in saying one thing on behalf of black journalists everywhere: When and if our industry decides to deal with the issues raised by Kelley’s transgressions, we stand ready to help. Need someone to handle outreach to journalism programs at HWCUs (historically white colleges and universities)? Want to discuss whether hiring whites requires us to lower our standards? Looking for ideas of how to make whites feel more welcome? ROFLAMO - Pitts just nails it. We’re standing by. All you have to do is call. Because doggone it, white journalism has a long, proud history - Edward R. Murrow, Mike Royko ... Matt Drudge. We cannot allow one bad apple to sully that. So I’ll be over here waiting for the discussion of these issues to begin. I’m thinking I should pack a lunch. Might want to pack dinner, too. I don’t always agree with Pitts’ columns, but this one is right on the mark. What was it Martin Luther King said about "the content of their character"? Too bad our "news" purveyors don’t have any. |
| Posted by:Barbara Skolaut bskolaut@hotmail.com |
| #4 And Oh yeah Leonard, maybe you could write a piece about what it does mean about the future of white journalism. Your most important question. Not how to win the war. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-04-25 1:54:45 PM |
| #3 Well said RC. Even Blairs book title had to bring up the slave guilt trip. I don't follow that path anymore. And Pitts makes his living commenting endlessly about race. It's central to his themes. So what is Pitts problem, white people? Whats his fix, a dialogue about race? A condemnation of the majority for being a majority. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-04-25 1:50:21 PM |
| #2 This is funny and on the mark re: the racial aspect of it....however, I have to say that, IMHO it misses one important reality. Until minorities themselves dismiss the need for racial preferences to give them a leg up over their "white" (what doest that mean exactly anymore?) counterparts, I think it is fair to ask the question of whether or not race based preferences result in the acceptance of lower standards for minority candidates. You can argue (successfully, I believe) that certain minority groups face prejudice in hiring practices or that a poor black student must overcome more to reach the same heights as a child who hails from an already successful household. But once you start the discussion, it's not fair to say that's it's not ok to ask the question if race-only based preferences result in the acceptance of less qualified workers, rather than just providing the "in" that the equally qualified candidates need to get in the door. One reason that "when a white person screws up, it ignites a debate on the screw up. When a black person screws up, it ignites a debate on race" is because there is no possibility that the white candidate was afforded any type of preference based on his race. Again - I think this article was funny and on the mark - but fails to address the underlying question that minorities should be asking as well as "whites"...and that is ...do race based preferences provide preferences to less qualified candidates v/s simply equal the playing field? |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-25 1:36:58 PM |
| #1 Except that Blair was hired and promoted based on his color -- a fact admitted to by those who hired and promoted him. If Blair's race had never had a role in his advancement, it wouldn't have cropped up during his disgrace. Sorry, but Pitts is just trying to throw a smokescreen up to cloud the questions around "affirmative action". |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-04-25 1:19:20 PM |