BW: The Times Sets an Example for the Street

BusinessWeek: Humiliating events have a way of capturing the public's imagination. So it has been since antiquity, when gladiators were pitted against each other and the legions of Spartacus were crucified in endless rows on the way to Rome. In the modern era, we have the degradation of Captain Alfred Dreyfus before cheering crowds in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire. We have the resignation of Richard Nixon. And now, of course, we have The New York Times.

The latest station of the cross on that institution's Via Dolorosa took place on June 5, with the resignations of the two men most directly responsible for the hiring and promotion of a "reporter" by the name of Jayson Blair. Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd stepped down. It will make front-page news around the country. Naturally.

The Times's very public humiliation is a genuine media spectacle. Even the Times, were it someone else's scandal, would have "piled on" the story of a sophisticated and often arrogant institution scammed by a congenital liar. As I see it, Blair wasn't a journalist but rather the ink-stained equivalent of a Wall Street scam artist (see BW Online, 5/23/03, "Jayson Blair vs. the Fraud Police").

GOOD BEHAVIOR. Legitimate institutions historically have been defenseless in the face of outright fraud. Blair hasn't been accused of any crimes, but he publicly took delight in scamming his editors and his readers. So, by that analogy, the Times was the victim of a phenomenon that's almost impossible to prevent, a kind of 100-year flood of sheer turpitude.

That's what makes the departures of Boyd and Raines intriguing and, in an odd way, reassuring to anyone who still clings to the outmoded notion that journalism may have just a tiny claim on moral superiority. Blair may be the journalistic counterpart of a Wall Street scam artist, but the Times, by sacrificing its two top editors, isn't behaving the way a typical Wall Street firm would in similar circumstances.

When Corporate America finds a Jayson Blair in its midst, the standard operating procedure is to circle the wagons and deny that any form of liability extends up the chain of command. Sometimes they may eject a suitable scapegoat -- the perpetrator, if he or she hasn't departed, or perhaps a middle manager. But none of this would happen without the threat, or actuality, of regulatory sanctions or shareholder lawsuits.

BOGIE BADGE OF APPROVAL. The Times was under no visible threat of litigation. Its share price was hardly dented. And as a newspaper, it's a member of the most unregulated of institutions. Heads are rolling not because of any outside pressure or threat of regulatory intervention. They're being very publicly lopped off because it's the right thing to do.

While this may not comfort the newspaper's numerous (and often justified) critics, the fact is that the Times is actually taking a principled stance. Those two men didn't have to go, no matter how many feathers they ruffled in the newsroom.

The flip side of humiliation is pride. Moral superiority lies at the center of journalism's mythology -- as portrayed in old Warner Bros. movies that would have a crusading editor (portrayed by, say, Humphrey Bogart) facing down racketeers. The Times had to sacrifice its two top editors to save its soul and to prove that journalists are somehow different than the people they cover. The Times did what it had to do.

By Gary Weiss

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