Reading between the Lies

Given the chance, Macarena Hernandez might have done great things at the New York Times. With a gift for detail and musical prose, she was offered a job after working as a summer intern in 1998 and planned to take it – right until the day that August when her father, a construction worker, was killed by an 18-wheeler. Her mother needed her, so Hernandez went to Texas. With no journalism jobs in sight, she began teaching English to mostly poor Mexican-American kids at her old high school. She urged them to follow their dreams.

One of her fellow interns that summer, Jayson Blair, was also talented and ambitious, and quite a bit luckier. Despite some reprimands for sloppy reporting – like missing the fact that a murder victim was not shot but strangled – he rose fast at the Times, made friends, wooed mentors and eventually was sent to Washington to join the team covering the hunt for the Beltway sniper. There he brought glory to the paper with front-page scoops that left rivals shaking their heads in wonder – and disbelief.

In spring 2003, when he began writing about the families of soldiers who died fighting in Iraq, Blair and Hernandez crossed paths again. Now 28, she found a job at Texas’ San Antonio Express-News; on April 18 the paper published her story about Juanita Anguiano, the mother of a missing soldier from Los Fresnos, Texas. Blair’s article about Anguiano landed on the front page of the Times eight days later. Both were moving, vivid portraits of a mother’s love and loss. But only one was original. “He stole her story,” says Express-News editor Robert Rivard, who wrote to Howell Raines, executive editor of the New York Times, asking him to look into the matter.

Which is how it came to pass that Blair resigned, and America’s most prestigious newspaper found itself answering ever sharper questions about just who Jayson Blair was, how much of the material in his 700 or so Times stories over the past five years was made up and what the paper of record was going to do to correct that record. As soon as national editor Jim Roberts began calling sources in some of Blair’s pieces, says Raines, “in every case … there was apparent falsification.”

In the belief that “the proper response to bad journalism is to do good journalism,” Raines assigned three editors and five reporters to re-report Blair’s suspicious stories and comb through his computer files and expense accounts. The result was unbelievable. According to the investigation, Blair “fabricated comments. He concocted scenes. He stole material from other newspapers and wire services.” He described the houses of grieving parents he never visited, the nightmares of wounded soldiers who deny discussing them, the tears of people who seldom cry. “It’s a huge black eye,” said publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.

The revelations gave the Times a hard shove into the company of the nation’s other great but occasionally humbled papers: the Boston Globe, whose columnists Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith resigned in 1998 after charges of serial plagiarism; the Wall Street Journal, whose financial columnist Foster Winans was convicted on 59 counts of conspiracy and fraud in 1985 for using his articles to make money in the stock market; and the Washington Post, which had to return the 1981 Pulitzer Prize won by reporter Janet Cooke for the haunting story of Jimmy, the 8-year-old heroin addict who turned out to be nothing more than a ghost from her typewriter.

Like every other news organization, the Times has had its share of embarrassments, but it also has a custom of obsessively addressing them in a corrections section on page 2 that is so meticulous about the smallest mistakes that it suggests the paper would never make big ones. Any reporter with 5% or 6% correction rate comes under scrutiny; the Times found 36 errors in 73 articles Blair wrote between October and the end of April. Some of the editors who suspected his methods were reluctant to condemn him. Others neglected to share their concerns, or their warnings just got lost.

Whether or not this is a scandal born of ambition, it is also being cast as a story about race[5]. Publications like the Times work hard to find and keep the best black reporters. That sometimes involves hiring minority reporters whose experience was “significantly below what we’d normally require because we wanted a lot of minority reporters,” says one Times senior manager, who notes that a special training program helps bring young reporters up to speed. As Blair’s record came to light, some colleagues concluded that he got second chances that others might not have. But others deny that race ensured Blair’s rise or delayed his fall. He is variously described as charming and cunning, ambitious and lazy. “He was a picture of affability; he had a big hello for everyone. He was a hell of a fun, nice guy,” says one colleague. “Most people rooted for him, most people were thrilled by his success, and now people are heartbroken.”

Journalism may worship truth, but it is built on trust, and honest editors will admit that a determined and creative liar is hard to catch. The Times will remember this catastrophe for a long time but will, in all likelihood, not suffer much for it.

(From ‘Time’, abridged)

Choose the best answer to the following questions.

1. Where did Macarena Hernandez and Jayson Blair first meet?

A. At high school where Hernandez taught English.

B. They were colleagues at the New York Times.

C. At Texas’ San Antonio Express-News.

2. Jayson Blair was sent to Washington to cover the hunt for Beltway sniper because

A. he was talented and ambitious.

B. he could bring glory to the paper.

C. he knew how to win over his superiors.

3. How did Blair and Hernandez cross paths again?

A. They met in Los Fresnos, Texas, interviewing the mother of a missing solder.

B. They met at Texas’ San Antonio Express-News.

C. They didn’t actually meet. Blair just used Hernandez’s story to write his own article for the Times.

4. The Times is described in the article as ‘the paper of record’, which means

A. it has set a record in reporting.

B. it is a reliable and highly respected source of information.

C. it keeps records of all published materials.

5. By saying “It is a huge black eye” Arthur Sulzberger Jr. means that

A. Jayson Blair has done great harm to the newspaper.

B. Jayson Blair is black.

C. The newspaper has overlooked much false information.

6. It was hard to believe that the Times could publish false information because

A. it is very careful about correcting every small error.

B. it is one of the leading American newspapers.

C. it had never made big mistakes.

7. Why wasn’t the Times executive editor aware of Blair’s falsifications before the full-scale investigation?

A. Being too arrogant, he wouldn’t listen to the editors who were warning him.

B. The editors didn’t condemn Blair before the investigation.

C. The editors didn’t take the problem of falsification seriously and didn’t insist on their accusations.

8. Many people believe that Blair’s falsifications and plagiarism were not dealt with earlier because

A. he is black.

B. he is talented.

C. the Times editors prefer to keep minority reporters.

9. Those who deny the race aspect in Blair’s case like him because

A. he is as lazy and ambitious as they themselves are.

B. he is very friendly and charming.

C. they are thrilled by his success.

10. Dishonest journalists like Jayson Blair are hard to catch because

A. they are determined and creative.

B. all journalists are supposed to worship truth.

C. journalism is built on trust.

 

10. Read Article 2 and compare it with Article 1.