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Sat 7 Jun, 2003 11:08 am
Quote:The NYT's Much Ado About the Wrong Thing
Farai Chideya, AlterNet
June 5, 2003
Viewed on June 7, 2003
On the morning of Thursday, June 5, the leadership of the New York Times called together their staff for the second major town hall meeting in as many weeks. The first time, editors Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd fell three-quarters of the way down their swords -- dispensing mea culpas but, in executive editor Raines' case, stating he would not resign.
This time, they resigned.
I've got one simple question. Why?
This is not a trick question. It strains belief to think that that one ludicrously megalomaniacal liar, Jayson Blair, could topple this paper. If so, it may well be that he was simply one domino who started a chain reaction.
Take the first town hall meeting. Raines said, "You view me as inaccessible and arrogant. You believe the newsroom is too hierarchical, that my ideas get acted on and others get ignored. I heard that you were convinced there's a star system that singles out my favorites for elevation." According to one reporter in the room, this self-denunciation didn't mollify the assemblage as much as inspire bloodlust. Now that heads have rolled, what kind of newsroom will emerge?
My prediction is that there will be a final round of mea culpas, and then it's back to business as usual. No, I don't mean letting liars run wild -- that was never typical. I mean getting rid of the autocratic management style that stifles real innovation and creativity. Raines' fiefdom was called "the republic of fear." It will take tremendous courage, including the willingness to experiment and fail, for this institution to become more democratic. If the Times became more open to the needs and contributions of its reporters, it could set a tremendous precedent for the industry.
Unfortunately, the business right now resembles a herd of sheep. Many editors assign pieces more to impress their fellow editors than to serve the needs of the public. When I read the pile-on of attack pieces about the New York Times, I hear a distant baaa.
Most media institutions would be better served looking at scandals closer to home: the gaps in their own coverage. My nominations for the top media scandals of the year:
Why didn't news organizations have the courage to challenge the Bush Administration's flimsy, now-discredited, rationales for war?
Where are the follow-up investigations on spectacular business debacles like Enron? Where'd the money go, and how can we prevent corporate fraud in the future?
Why did we only learn of the loopholes cutting poor families from the tax cut after it was passed?
Why isn't there more innovative reporting on critical, but not sexy, issues like public education and the growing debt spiral facing American families?
Why isn't there more innovative reporting on successes in citizen action, like the California referendum mandating treatment for nonviolent drug offenders which has shrunk the country's largest prison system?
And, yes, why isn't there more innovative reporting on the media industry itself, particularly remembering the media's role in the 2000 election debacle and leading up to the 2004 elections?
The biggest challenge facing the news industry today is not any single fraud, but whether journalism itself is relevant to the lives of Americans. That's one town hall meeting I'm still waiting for.
There really isn't much of an investigative media left in the United States. Non-journalistic corporations have purchased media outlets and profits have a higher priority then news investigations. It is much less of a drain on the budget to have a zombified reporter camped out at a courthouse or White House press room waiting for stories to drop into their laps.
The "rest of the story" is still available from media outlets outside the U.S. but from what I am seeing, most Americans and the media just aren't interested in spending the energy/money to look for it.
The situation at the New York Times just mirrors what is happening in American life in general. It has become fast food news where reporters drive up for tidbits from the local police blotter. Heck, many don't even bother to drive up, they just repeat what they hear on the wire without checking its validity or accuracy.
Hi, Butrflynet (nice avatar!) I'm waiting and seeing about the NYTimes -- am a subscriber and respect a number of their columnist and much of their reporting. Am glad Howell Raines resigned -- admired him in his previous life but think he was much at fault for the loose hinges in national reporting.
Butterfly they're past not interested and believe outside mainstream news sources to be liars and un-american.
This is a result of careful planning and manipulation of the news media by the Bush cartel and was put in place long before GWB was placed in the forefront as President(?)
The Scorpion and the Frog
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the
scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The
frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion
says, "Because if I do, I will die too."
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,
the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of
paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown,
but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"
Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."
it is the nature of companies, which survive on profits to do what is profitable, not ethical, not moral, but profitable.
Aha, here you've touched the heart of the problem, dawg.
What is the function of corporations, what is the motivation of entrepreneurs, what is the essence of the free market -- in short, what's the purpose of capitalism? Is it purely selfish, or does it have a social function?
Is the essence of work competition?
I believe maturity would say: no, it must be more than that. The truth is that we are interconnected. My actions have an effect on your life, and vice versa. This applies to all six billion of us. Hence, we are responsible for each other. That's the essence of what we do, and this essence exists before any of us gets up to go to work. The need for interactive help comes before anything we do for a living. Capitalism and corporatism should adapt to that, if they want to reflect this reality. Now, they continue on their perillous road, eliminate more and more adversaries (cfr. the Windows saga), the economy thereby builds more and more monopolies, until, eventually, there is no one left to compete with. At that moment, the soap bubble will be apparent, the pipe dream will become a nightmare. We are living that nightmare as we speak, now that corporations sweat out their madness into the international political decision-making, eat away natural resources, and colonize each other.
But I say: the metaphor in the parable is erroneous. Men are not scorpions. What men do, they do for the survival of men, not for their proper wealth. It's an illusion: we simply are not alone.
my response to your remarks alluding to the alleged "brotherhood of man" can be found on the PUP thread about empathy.
Kuvasz, again I agree with you completely, about corporations simply following their nature.
Private corporations tend to disregard the public good, because that's not part of their fundamental structure and nature. We can discipline as many individual companies as we like, but the social forces will keep creating new companies just like them.
So the next step is to find a fundamental solution -- What forces within society would need to be adjusted, so that corporations will naturally and strongly gravitate towards the public good?
CodeBorg wrote:Kuvasz, again I agree with you completely, about corporations simply following their nature.
Private corporations tend to disregard the public good, because that's not part of their fundamental structure and nature. We can discipline as many individual companies as we like, but the social forces will keep creating new companies just like them.
So the next step is to find a fundamental solution -- What forces within society would need to be adjusted, so that corporations will naturally and strongly gravitate towards the public good?
how can one arrive at a fundamental solution when the system is a dynamic social organization? nailing jello to a wall is easier.
"incorporated" entities are by their nature intent on profit in a capitalistic economic environment. to insist that they "come into the light" requires that something be given back to them, usually security in exchange for some of the profits they forego in being more in-tune with public good over private profit.
if you dont want to concede this, you can not insist that you are working under a capitalistic system, because then the private (meaning not state owned) companies are not doing what they were set up to do in the first place, make money for the owners.
kuvasz, PUP ?
...
One cannot easily dismiss the brotherhood of mankind. It's a natural fact.
Kuvasz, I absolutely agree this is a capitalist society and companies are formed in order to make a profit. That is what I'm stating too!
But I'm tired of so many different people complaining about our corporate self-destructive inhumanity, so let's not whine about how difficult a solution would be. Let's just look for solutions.
No solution is absolute, fixed, or complete, so it's a matter of which direction you want the jello to go. How can we nudge it just a little bit? What would have to be changed within capitalism? Some random bad examples:
1) Less desperation to make a buck. If society didn't attempt such huge construction goals, shaving every dollar from already thin profit margins, then employees might be a bit more relaxed and able to think about what is "good" rather than "profitable". Don't strain to do so much! Let our resources drift into humane projects. But this takes education and skill.
2) Restructure corporate law to require a certain amount of pro-bono or community service work, as a company grows.
3) Tighter anti-trust laws, that dismember any company that grows bigger than a small country.
4) Examine how small and large businesses work. Figure some way of giving small businesses a greater advantage, just to distribute social forces across many more competitors.
None of these are correct answers. There are no correct solutions to any problem in the world. But if you and I mull things over a bit, I bet we could find a few small improvements and adjustments here and there, that change the rules of the game. Just so we address the underlying forces involved (how things work), rather than individual symptoms (isolated cases).
Food for thought anyways... I'm not making any particular claims,
just outlining a principle. Little steps in the right direction.
A fire-fight between the Washington Post and the NYTimes about who's getting it right... about WMD's and about Bush's, uh, honesty..
http://observer.com/pages/frontpage6.asp
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