Jayson Blair Talking, or Is It the Drugs?
Disgraced reporter Jayson Blair continues to talk — this time he’s in U.S. News & World Report — but his references to his drug problems, and a recent letter to the editor in the Washington Post, make one wonder why more attention hasn’t been focused on the effects of his substance abuse problems on his work at the New York Times, and on what he’s been saying since his forced departure.
On May 23, the Post ran a letter to the editor from Paul Sweeting, a Washington journalist who covers the electronics and entertainment businesses:
“The speed at which the controversy over Jayson Blair and the New York Times devolved into an argument about race reflects how ready Americans are to engage in an argument about race. But as an explanation for what went wrong, it’s irrelevant,” Sweeting wrote.
“The only salient fact in the affair is that Mr. Blair reportedly abused cocaine. Anyone who has been around someone with that problem could have recognized the tell-tale signs as soon as the first reports of Mr. Blair’s behavior were published: the disordered nature of his life, the unexplained absences, the new lies to cover up old lies, pretending to be in Maryland while really in New York (can’t get too far away from your drug source).
“Drug addicts are the most versatile and spectacular liars you will ever meet. Smart addicts can fool a lot of people for a long time. It has nothing to do with race, profession, class, sex or any other incidental factor. Cocaine treats its victims the same, and it overwhelms every other consideration.”
“I’ve just seen what happened to Jayson Blair happen to other people, and I’ve also seen other organizations mishandle the situation,” Sweeting told Journal-isms.
In the issue of U.S. News & World Report on the stands today, Blair says:
“I believe my own demons would have caught up with me regardless of my race and regardless of whether I worked at the Times. [The Times] just quickened things. . . .
“What I did was not entirely deliberate and conscious. Some people have made an argument that it was a cancer spreading and I was the first person to die from it. . . . It was obviously wrong . . . [but] I didn’t invent the wheel. Somewhere in my head I knew people were getting away with this. . . . By March, I was playing air guitar, and it was all air guitar from there.
“Drugs and alcohol were more a symptom of depression and mania and other psychological problems. I used drugs and alcohol to self-medicate. In January 2002, I cleaned up.”
Blair’s boastful, defiant statements in the New York Observer were seemingly taken at face value.
Last week, Newsday reported, Blair told a reporter from that paper who is a former colleague: “I know I’ve said a lot of things since this began that have been hurtful, and I wish I could take some of that back. I shouldn’t have spoken until I had time to reflect on what has happened.’
“Blair said he awoke at 11 a.m. Thursday, washed down a mood stabilizer with cranberry juice, then turned on his computer . . .” the story continued.
In other developments:
— In recent weeks, Jim Romenesko “has posted a dozen links a day to stories about the New York Times controversy, along with a lively letter debate, leaked internal e-mails and even a limerick contest on Jayson Blair . . . The brouhaha has been to Romenesko what the first Persian Gulf War was to CNN, a defining moment,” the Los Angeles Times wrote.
— “After weeks of hearing diversity and affirmative action criticized by some white colleagues, who blamed the practices for producing the circumstances that allowed a young black reporter, Jayson Blair, to commit fraudulent journalism, some minority staff members [at the New York Times] reacted to [Managing Editor Gerald] Boyd’s [resignation] announcement with a sense of heartbreak and foreboding about race relations. It was especially troubling, they said, that a scandal spawned by a drug-abusing, emotionally troubled young man had spun out of control to such an extent that Boyd’s career was tainted and the concept of diversity at the newspaper left under a cloud,” wrote Lynne Duke and Darryl Fears in the Washington Post.
— In the St. Petersburg Times, television writer Eric Deggans said that, “Much as I hate to credit him for it, Blair’s biggest legacy may be forcing newspapers to confront a series of hypocrisies about themselves. Particularly in the New York Times’ case, this scandal has pilloried a culture of institutional arrogance in a way that holds lessons for all journalists.”
— In the Los Angeles Times, media writer David Shaw reviewed the tenures of New York Times editors of the recent past, and concluded, “A boss doesn’t have to be liked to be effective. Respect is usually sufficient. A bit of fear may — may — sometimes help. But when too many subordinates are more frightened than respectful, it’s a recipe for disaster. It was for [Abe] Rosenthal, and it was for [Howell] Raines.
“In Raines’ case, the arrogance-and-fear syndrome was exacerbated by a career-long isolation.”
Ex-Reporter Frisby: In PR, I Help Save Black Lives
Michael K. Frisby says he had what he considers the best job in American journalism — White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal — when he left the business in 1998 to become a vice president of Porter Novelli public relations in Washington. In April, he left there to become president of the Walker Marchant Group, a minority-owned public relations company launched two years ago by former Clinton press aide Ann Walker Marchant. He’s hard-pressed to think of any other black journalists who have enjoyed such success in P.R.
Would he go back to journalism? “I never say never, but I’m now enjoying a second career. I’m very happy with it and I seem to be thriving at it,” he told Journal-isms. “It’s a different pace. Every four years, I didn’t see my family because I was covering a political campaign.” He has a son, 15, and daughter, 5.
At Porter Novelli, Frisby marketed a program designed to teach better eating habits to African American men, a population that suffers disproportionately from diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and certain cancers. Working with the National Cancer Institute, he put on a discussion of healthful eating habits at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last year in Milwaukee — complete with a free, healthful breakfast for those who attended. Last October, the Cancer Institute chose Porter Novelli Washington for its $7.4 million “5 A Day for Better Health Communications” campaign.
Is Frisby concerned about a brain drain of experienced journalists of color to public relations, given newspapers’ inability to reach their goal of parity with the general population of color? “Here’s the way I look at it,” Frisby replied. “That’s a problem for journalism — newspapers and TV stations — to solve. I just finished a program on how to save the lives of African American men. I did that in P.R. I’m not sure that the thousands of newspaper stories I did in my career had the impact or potential impact of a program like that.”
Frisby, 48, worked at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland and at the Boston Globe before going to the Wall Street Journal. In public relations, he has specialized in “social marketing” and crisis management. His clients included the parents of missing Washington intern Chandra Levy, Robert and Susan Levy, for whom Frisby served as spokesman, and the new Washington Convention Center.
Campaign to improve black men’s eating habits
Chicago Tribune Apologizes for Editorial Cartoon
The Chicago Tribune apologized yesterday for a political cartoon about the Middle East by its former staff cartoonist, Dick Locher, that “was viewed by many readers as virulently anti-Semitic.”
“We failed to recognize that the cartoon conveyed symbols and stereotypes that slur the Jewish people and that are offensive. The editors of this newspaper regret publishing the cartoon,” the paper said in an editorial.
“. . . This newspaper does, and will, strive for balance and fairness. It will continue to publish aggressive reporting and opinion writing, and sometimes that will upset readers. It will continue to publish editorial cartoons, which use sharp caricature to make a point.
“A newspaper has a responsibility to vigorously pursue information and encourage public debate, even when it is unsettling.
“Newspapers often talk about transparency in government and other public institutions. A newspaper that values such transparency is compelled to tell its readers this fact: The paper is put out by fallible human beings. It is written and edited by people trying their best. We regret when those efforts fall short.”
Locher’s May 30 cartoon showed President Bush placing American dollars on a bridge over “Mideast Gulch” in an effort to lure Israel into negotiating with the Palestinians, as Editor & Publisher reported on June 3. “On second thought, the pathway to peace is looking a bit brighter,” says an Ariel Sharon-like figure as he eyes the money. I was trying to go to bat for the American taxpayer.”
Locher told E&P Online then, “Israel is a good friend, but let’s get an accounting of where the money is going.” Tribune Media Services said none of Locher’s 200-plus newspaper clients had canceled the cartoonist, E&P reported Thursday.
Nevels-Haun Becomes ME in Huntington, W.Va.
Jill Nevels-Haun has been named managing editor of Gannett’s Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, W.Va., the first person of color in the job, she told Journal-isms.
Nevels-Haun, 33, is the former regional editor of Knight Ridder’s Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky, the Herald Dispatch reported, and was previously city editor of the Marietta Times in Ohio, a former Gannett property now owned by the Ogden Co. She also was education reporter and assistant city editor at the Herald-Dispatch from 1996 to 1997.
“Usually, the most challenging aspect of a new position is getting acclimated to a new community, but my family and I have been fortunate to call the Huntington area our home for nearly eight years,” Nevels-Haun said in the Herald-Dispatch.
“I?m looking forward to becoming more involved in the community and to giving readers more stories that educate, inform and just plain delight them,” she said.
“Each day, we have the opportunity to make a difference — seizing that opportunity is what makes this business truly exciting.”
The paper has a circulation of 38,000 and a circulation area that is less than 7 percent black, with the black population concentrated in Huntington, Nevels-Haun told Journal-isms. She participated in the Maynard Institute’s 1999 Management Training Module, “Team Management,” in Los Angeles.
Gwen Ifill: I’m a Gumbel Admirer
“Bryant Gumbel’s rep for steamrolling his female coanchors (see Pauley, Jane; Couric, Katie) doesn’t ring true to PBS’s Gwen Ifill,” writes Gail Shister in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“‘I love Bryant,’ says Ifill, Gumbel’s partner on the new quarterly PBS public-affairs series Flashpoints USA. ‘I worked for him at NBC [from 1994 to ’99], one forgets. We got along great. He gave me great advice and lots of encouragement.”
“Flashpoints, which will focus on a single issue in each one-hour segment, launches July 15. Washington’s WETA will produce the series.”
“Media Coverage of Itself Is Lacking”
David Folkenflik of the Baltimore Sun talked about his revelation that Geraldo Rivera wasn’t really in the spot in Afghanistan where Americans died, as he had dramatically said on Fox TV, and about how Fox officials’ “decided to defend its brand over the truth.”
Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix mentioned how Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe, fired for fabrications there in 1998, had even taken phrases from the iconic press critic A.J. Liebling. He posted his opening remarks on his www.dankennedy.net Web site.
And Renee Ferguson of WMAQ, the NBC station in Chicago, talked about being ripped off by other reporters, and urged Investigative Reporters and Editors to set up machinery to advocate for the reporter whose work was stolen.
The three were on a panel moderated by Journal-isms Friday at the IRE convention in Washington, and covered in a story called “Media Coverage of Itself is Lacking” on the IRE Web site.
