See, wasn't it the New York Times itself that first brought it up, unbidden? They said in their recent mea culpa:
Mr. Blair's Times supervisors and Maryland professors emphasize that he earned an internship at The Times because of glowing recommendations and a remarkable work history, not because he is black. The Times offered him a slot in an internship program that was then being used in large part to help the paper diversify its newsroom.
As Sullivan says, what then was the reason he was hired? Glowing recommendations or an effort to diversify the newsroom?
Look, I'm sure we all get a bit squeamish talking about the race issue, but I'm going to plow ahead, and if you disagree with me, tell me so.
Jayson Bliar was in no way a crummy reporter because he was black, and his "sins" should in no way reflect poorly on black journalsits or black people in general. In my mind, there's no connection there whatsoever.
What the scandal might reflect poorly upon is the notion that diversity in a workplace is more important than getting the quality folks in there in the first place. But it was executive editor Howell Raines who said, "'This [aforementioned internship] campaign has made our staff better and, more importantly, more diverse." (From TimesWatch, talking about an NPR piece. Again, Andrew Sullivan pointed it out.)
Jayson Blair may have been hired because his race made him attractive to an organization that may in some cases value diversity above quality. Moreover, he may have been kept on for so long for precisely the same reason. Does that mean all black journalists, employees, workers, whatever are in the same boat, or are slipshod workers? No, of course not. Does it mean that Sullivan, Safire, myself (wow, mentioned in the same sentence!), and others are racists? No. Does it mean that the system that makes organizations like the New York Times look the other way in order to preserve its diversity is fundamentally flawed? Yes.
I applied for a job at the New York Times straight out of college, and I didn't get it. I didn't think I would, as I was grossly underqualified. But I wanted to move to NYC and figured, "What the hell." But Jayson Blair got hired by the Times (first through the internship route) without even graduating from college! Did the Times' editors wet themselves when they saw the chance to hire on a black reporter that they could turn into a superstar? Looks like they did.
I guess what I'm getting at here is that it's easy to demonize conservative commentators for supposedly bringing up the race thing. After all, there's a popular undercurrent among liberal thinkers that all conservatives are racists (won't even get into that right now). But, first of all, I'm not sure they brought it up first anyway; and secondly, maybe we shouldn't be scared to talk about it in this instance. After all, no one's saying that it's a problem affecting all reporters or journos who happen to be minorities. But there is at least some evidence that Blair may not have been able to inflict the damage he did if the Times' management weren't so hell-bent on diversifying their newsroom, and then afraid of looking bad when one of their golden boys turns out to be a fraud.
I think what people are realizing here is maybe that the "newspaper of record" isn't as much of a meritocracy as we all thought. Then again, maybe we all knew, deep down, that it wasn't. And that's just a damn shame.
