New York Times Writer Lied, Plagarized

chatoyant- I hear what you are saying, and you are probably right. Maybe I am naive, but I always considered the NYT a world class newspaper, if not one of the best. As such, I think that they need to be held to a higher standard than say, the "Toonerville Tribune".

If we can't trust the New York Times, whom CAN we trust?

Phoenix, I agree in part, because the NY Times is read by a larger number of people than most other papers. However, some people read only the "Toonerville Tribune" and expect it to give them accurate information. I've been sad to see how the media has gone downhill so drastically in the last five to ten years. I used to be proud to work for a newspaper. I got to the point (even in this medium-sized town) where I hated to admit I did. A once-great institution has faltered to such a point that I don't think it will ever be the same again.

P.S. - Phoenix, I don't think you're naive at all.

Also, I forgot how to do the quote thingie. Grrrrrr. I'll figure it out again one of these days.

chatoyant- Type the quote, highlight, and hit "quote", that is on top of "default"!

Also, (I'm on a "roll" now) everyone was so aghast by the Iraqi Minister of Information. He did nothing different than that reporter....it was just a matter of degree. Morally, they were equally reprehensible. A lie, is a lie. is a lie...............

Who can you trust? Who should you trust?

Your own mind and your ability to think critically, to accept that the world is a gritty place and still work with it. Like history, so much news is written by people with an agenda. Yet the responsibility for absolutely everything in life still lies with yourself.

Publishing is still a human endeavor, with personalities, desperation, ambition and greed. Every company I've worked for has been amazingly messed up on the inside, yet slick and professional on the outside, so it doesn't surprise me at all.

I'm still confident there are a lot of good journalists alongside the bad.
It seems like a right big investigation is being made because people are interested to know, so I think the inevitable continues to happen and everything is fine.

Code Borg- I could agree with you, except for one thing. There is absolutely no way that a person can check on every news story that one reads.

If I needed surgery, I would not do it myself. I would go to a surgeon. I characteristically check the person's credentials first, and interview the doctor. If I think that he is well trained, and appears to have the intelligence and expertise to perform the surgery, I will hire him.

You could take that same concept to the evaluation of what you read in the papers. I would expect a higher level of truth in the NYT than I would in the National Enquirer. I am not talking now about evaluating what the reporter is writing. This I look at with a critical eye. But if the reporter wrote that he was in a green house last Friday, there is NO way that I could check that!

Geez, I always did it the hard way. It just goes to show you can keep on learning no matter how old you get.

CodeBerg, good post. I agree there are a lot of good journalists - in fact, I'd say they're in the majority. As I said before, I think management is the problem, as it is in so many businesses. Sometimes I wonder how this country keeps on going and going and going ......

That's not how I make a quote. I highlight the passage, transferr it with the quote button and delete what I don't want.

Like that!

I couldn't agree with you more here, Phoenix -- and I hope my comments didn't trivialize this issue.

As New Haven pointed out, it ain't easy to run herd on reporters -- but this seems to be a case of somebody screwing up who should have been checking on this guy.

All newspapers realize they have to check on their people to be sure something like this happens as infrequently as possible.

Oh yeah, you can copy and paste the quote. I think that the important part was the highlighting and hitting the "quote button!

Checking is not necessary. Factoring and accepting uncertainty is enough.

YOU do whatever it takes to make a good surgery happen. Interview and judge many doctors, make some choices, then roll the dice and take your chances. A certain percentage will come out bad, through negligence or bad fortune. Just as we all know a certain percentage of news is contrived.

But the responsibility for the desired outcome ... your life, attitude, choices, and result, is still 100% yours. After all, you're the one trying to get something!

In any company, experimentation and variety produces a better system, but no system can be perfect ... especially when there is experimentation and variety. Expecting perfection is gaurenteed failure, while continually improving a rotten situation is gaurenteed success.

So we must accept the fact that quacks, thieves, and incompetent people exist in all professions. Nothing will ever remove bias or diversity, so we just factor it in, and get on with life.





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Blaming a tiger for being a tiger and a shark for being a shark won't undo something you dislike. Oops, my high horse just tipped over. Damn horse!

CodeBorg- Ultimately, you are right. I just like to make sure that the odds are in my favor!

In the end what damage was done? The administration and the media down played and ignored the significant oposition to the Iraq fiasco and no heads will role on that. There is considerable evidence that this reporter was compelled to submit a commentary every two days about events all over the country. Maybe the NYT needs to look at its program for filling a newspaper too cheaply and on the backs of too few.

Both CodeBorg and Phoenix are right....ultimately, we are all responsible for our own actions, and our behaviour on the job. Phoenix was writing from a personal perspective, but it is the same with any employer. One must be absolutely sure of their staff and their reliability if one is going to succeed without public scrutiny. "Personal problems" to me sounds like or worse, which would make for lazy journalists...

Quote from the article:



So it looks like this young man had a history of being a less than "star" reporter. What really amazes me, is that with this guy's track record, that the Times let him go on his merry way without adequate oversight!

I have spent most of my professional life in the written press. IMO, the NYT hoax is an abnormality, but only by excess.

Chatoyant wrote that this comes from every paper's effort to be popular: to have a lot of readers and, thus, enough advertising. I totally agree.

This means there is an equilibrium to be met, since readers want both credibility and entertainment. A well written, compelling story that tells the complete truth. Not an easy task.

A young reporter usually has to deal with their superior's requests on both sides. Perhaps the story is not compelling enough. Perhaps the data is not sufficiently verified. They live in a push-pull situation.

A good boss -be it the head information editor, the section editor, or the editor in chief- can easily recognize what we call -here in Mx-the potential "seals" and "eagles", and work their edges.
A "seal" has little or no imagination, tends to write dully, doublechecks everything and works just the required amount. S/he is capable of blowing a good interview with silly questions and of not grasping the "note" when it's at the hand. An "eagle" tends to "fly": s/he usually writes much better, can get the gist of the situation with a fast description, but often comes to conclusions too quickly and let's imagination do some of the work.
While the "seal" is incapable of mishandling a quote, the "eagle" is ready to do it, if it serves the piece.
Typically, you'll send the "seal" to the press conference and the "eagle" to the battlefield, but you'll insist to the "seal" to take notice on telling details and you'll insist to the "eagle" not to fly.

Obviously, "seals" tend to climb the newspaper ladder slowly, while "eagles" tend to soar.

What happens when an "eagle" comes to high positions? There is less checking of the information, a stronger drive to make the headlines, a stimulus for younger "eagles" in subordinate positions to "fly" higher and a more readable but less reliable paper.

Jayson Blair was an "eagle" who became sort of an Icarus. He flew way too high, driven by his ambitions. Deceiving became a way of life. But it's clear to me, in my experience, that there was no one to send him back to earth. No one to suspend him for earlier mistakes. And there possibly was somebody to congratulate him for pieces made out of hot air.

Borg Quote:

"Checking is not necessary. Factoring and accepting uncertainty is enough".



I believe this is what has caused most of the trouble.

Borg Quote:




I believe this is what caused all the trouble.