Dear Readers:
More and more essays and missives about problems at The New York Times lump the names of Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg. So it appears that the first casualties of journalism scandal are proportionality and the ability to draw useful distinctions.
What do Blair and Bragg have in common?
- They both worked for The New York Times.
- They both no longer work for the Times.
- They both have a one-syllable last name beginning with the letter B.
And that’s about it.
To compare, based on the current evidence, Blair’s acts with Bragg’s is like comparing Spam to spam.
In an unusual act of serious analysis, Dr. Ink offers the following cognitive model to help put journalism’s woes in context:
Morality: Leaving pathology aside, Jayson Blair’s transgressions are immoral. That is to say, any reasonable person, of whatever profession or background, would recognize his actions were wrong. An accountant, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a center fielder would recognize that stealing information from others, that making believe you were at a scene, that inventing details or sources is wrong and can only create hurtful consequences.
Ethics: By definition, codes prescribing ethical behavior grow out of the ethos, or essential culture, of a profession or calling. We don’t need ethics to distinguish right from wrong in a Ten-Commandments, black and white style. Instead, we use ethics to help us choose between competing goods, or to show us a middle path, or to minimize the harmful consequences of our actions. Some aspects of the Bragg case poke their noses into the field of ethics, but more properly fit into the next category.
Standards and Practices: The Bragg case falls most fairly into this category, the place where a news organization decides its standard policies and behaviors, along with the meaning of the signs it sends to readers and viewers. What does it mean when a story has a byline? What do we expect of the main writer when we establish a dateline? How and when do we credit others who helped us on a story? Under what circumstances can we use an unnamed source? Who in the newsroom should talk to whom, about what, and when?
Style: While style cannot be divorced from morality and ethics, the areas of taste and aesthetics, while matters of debate, inhabit a distant realm from universal principles of moral judgment. When the The New York Times decides to use honorific titles on second reference, it does so to establish consistency of usage and a level of diction that suggests formality and seriousness of purpose.
As news organizations begin, in the words of Archie Bell and the Drells, to “tighten up” their newsrooms, Dr. Ink hopes that these distinctions will help them act with wisdom and proportion and without recrimination.
Although he did not get to know Jayson Blair when Blair attended a Poynter seminar in 1996, Dr. Ink has known Rick Bragg since Bragg’s days at the St. Petersburg Times from 1989 to 1993.
