When it became clear that a young reporter with the New York Times had fabricated stories, made up quotations and sources, heads started to roll. So great was the public’s interest in the downfall of reporter Jayson Blair that the story even made the cover of a national magazine. The Times, a powerful, 165-year-old paper, whose 200 reporters don’t know the meaning of “quit,” did a lot of face-saving. They simply used the phrase—anathema to them—which politicians have used for years: “no comment.”
Now that some top officials of the Times have resigned because of the fallout, things are changing.
But this isn’t really about the Times; it’s about integrity, ethics and honesty.
Remember Rosie Ruiz and Janet Cooke? Ruiz made her mark at the finish line of a Boston Marathon in 1980. The trouble was that several people had seen Rosie Ruiz hopping a subway and riding most of the distance. Then, a half mile from the finish line, Ruiz sprinted into the race, well ahead of thousands. It took about 24 hours for marathon officials to verify that Ruiz had not appeared on videotape along the route’s checkpoints. Ruiz, meanwhile, was brazenly making the rounds of the TV talk shows, boasting the third-fastest time ever for a woman, 2:31:56, for the 26-mile course. And who is Janet Cooke? She was a Washington Post reporter and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for a series on “Jimmy’s World,” about an 8-year-old heroin addict. After a series of queries as to the existence of people quoted in the series, Cooke confessed there was no real Jimmy. Her stories, in essence, were fiction. She returned the prestigious award and resigned. A photographer for a major Arizona paper was threatened with firing after a one of his photos raised concerns.
The photographer had submitted a photo of a plane taking off from Sky Harbor one evening. The moon, perfectly situated in he background, illuminated one of the wings. The photo was a winner.
However, an alert reader questioned the veracity of the photo. She explained that there was no way the moon could ever have been in that position and that the juxtaposition of the elements was suspect.
Called into the editor’s office to explain, the photographer said he’d “created artistic effect” by sandwiching a photo of the moon, taken earlier, with that of the plane. The creative darkroom work was awesome. The press apparently never reported the fate of the photographer. Is creating a great photo through ingenious darkroom techniques the same as fabricating sources, subjects or marathon-winning opportunities?
These events happened in the early ’80s, before computerized digital imaging software was invented. Now, any photo can be optimized via digitizing. Daily we see images that have been doctored up. Does this mean the practitioners are misleading the public?
One of the greatest “highs” I experienced as a teacher was the completion of a unit on Ethics in Journalism, which I co-taught during a workshop to select high school seniors at the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. We’d presented numerous examples of what we considered ethical and unethical behavior and concluded the unit with the glow that happens only after you’re convinced everybody’s caught on.
The following day, a totally unexpected event occurred, which still bothers me. After a tour of the Arizona Republic and Gazette, my co-teacher and I were transporting some 15 students back to the Flagstaff campus. I stopped at an electronics store outside of Phoenix. Others in the van joined me. I bought a couple of tiny radios. As I boarded the van, two employees of the store approached the van and asked me to follow them back inside the store. I assumed one of our students had been caught shoplifting.
But I was the focus of the five-finger discount. The clerks, accompanied by a security guard, asked me to empty my shopping bag. I’m sure at least one of them was disappointed to discover that I had not shoplifted the entire store—even a part of it. All that was in the bag were the two radios and my receipt. They told me I was free to go. No apology. No explanation. Back in the van, my co-teacher chucked and said, “You tried to get away with it, didn’t you?” A student asked me whether the clerks had made me pay for the goods I walked out with.
Still another asked if what happened was in any way connected with the protestations of honesty and ethics we had been hammering out in class. I said something like, “They thought I shoplifted something, but I didn’t.” My co-teacher responded with, “Yeah, even Nixon swore he was innocent.” Sometimes even the most convincing explanation misses the mark. I have the feeling that a dozen students and a colleague remain convinced that I had gotten busted.
It’s ironic that after what I thought was a successful unit on honesty and integrity, the one who preached the loudest is taken for a shoplifter.
For months after the incident, I played the coulda, shoulda, woulda tapes. I wish I’d asked the gentlemen from the store to accompany me back to the van and to have THEM explain to my students that THEY made the mistake. Maybe I should have remained silent and remembered what Shakespeare said about those who “protest too much.”
What if all of the students and co-teacher knew the truth but nevertheless enjoyed dishing out some good-natured ribbing? Clearly, shoplifting and journalistic fraud are not the same, but they have in common the element of honesty, or lack thereof.
Hindsight is 20-20, but foresight is presbyopic.