UP IS DOWN

When Is a Good Liar Better than a Good Reporter? (Farai Chideya, May 12, 2003, AlterNet)

Now that we've established journalists aren't perfect, let's get to the bigger issue. News organizations -- hell, all organizations -- like their employees to fit into the culture. That's not bad when there's some flexibility. But too much conformity leads into the trap that Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter describes in her now-classic "Men and Women of the Corporation." The people who advance the quickest in a company tend to look (usually white and male) and act the most like their superiors. Blair wasn't white, but I suspect he was a skillful mimic who used his knowledge of the corporate culture to get by.

Liars like Blair are shapeshifters who spend at least as much time ingratiating themselves with others as they do on their work. Since his days on the college paper, Blair was known as someone who used his charm to get by. (One wonders, given the outrageousness of the stunts he pulled, exactly how much ass-kissing he had to do.)

This type of charming liar possesses qualities that, at least in the short term, are very appealing to editors. No assignment is too difficult, no request off-base. Real reporters get stuck, or at least find out that the story they uncover is different from the one assigned. Liars don't have this problem.

The best reporters today -- including the best black reporters -- follow the story, not the assignment. This tends to be problematic for many black reporters whose editors challenge their independence, particularly on stories of race. Talented reporters of color who see important story suggestions get shot down too often are branded "troublemakers" and leave the business. That's one reason that the biggest diversity challenge news organizations face is not hiring reporters of color, but retaining them.

As Brian Boys--who sent the story--pointed out, the reverse logic here is breathtaking: the problem is the Times's culture is too white, male, conservative and Jayson Blair was forced to mimic that culture to advance! That's an astonishing assertion given that this is the same paper that has been on a jihad against institutions like marriage, the Boy Scouts, and the Masters and which is proudly described by its own staff as essentially being run by homosexuals. That's hardly a traditional corporate culture. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 15, 2003 2:06 PM