Race and Jayson Blair’s Fabrication and Plagiarism
Neil Henry, a professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, has an interesting piece in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education about how a journalist’s race might effect his/her career after Jayson Blair, an African-American, admitted to plagiarizing and fabricating facts in articles he wrote for the New York Times over a four-year period. Henry argues that people will assume that just because someone is black, s/he will make the same serious journalistic mistakes Blair did. Henry sent the piece as an e-mail to some of his former students working in newspapers across the country.
Many white journalists have made the same mistakes in their work and been caught and punsihed for doing so. Did anyone write editorials about how a journalist’s race might effect his/her career after any of those incidents?
Another item about Jayson Blair appears on this blog.
(Note: Access to the Chronicle of Higher Education is restricted to subscribers.)
April 16th, 2004 at 9:39 pm
Mistakes by African-Americans are as I am sure you are aware of highlighted at a considerable higher rates than whites. Look at any local new station/broadcast journalism. When blacks commit crimes journalists have to interview a witness, an officer, three people who were eating at McDonald’s across the street. The black man’s photo is aired at least three to four times before the story is complete. When other people commit crimes there is a five second mug shot and it is on to the next story.
Another example, regarding education statistics in print journalism. African-American v. White educational progress is a favorite comparison abmong writers and so called sociologists. It does make for good fiction. However, how often do you read about the drop out rates for low income whites? How often do you read about the teen pregnancy rates for low income whites? It simply is not discussed. Because it is not discussed it does not exist right?
The statistics are manipulated and bogus because they are comparing apple and oranges. A grand day will come when affluent whites are compared to affluent blacks if there must be a comparison at all. Sadly, some people believe this information extremely relevant.
A co-worker often says she is a bitter member of a neglected minority “poor whites”.
She laments often about her bitterness.
This dialogue relates to Jason Blair because Blair is a black man in an influential position and he blew it. He is unique and will be held to a stricter standard because for whatever reason he is a minority in his position. How many black editors are there? A white editor stealing will not create the hoopla as Jason Blair because white editors are a dime a dozen. So what if a white editor plagerizes, his skin color does not stand out nor his position in society. The hoopla over Blair is as much about “look how the black man blew it” as it is a testimony of America’s twisted fascination with race.
The race factor in America is like roadkill. We don’t want to look. We don’t want to acknowledge its existence but against our will we look anyway. And what we see is the decayed dried blood of every race because we have all suffered at one point or another.
Do you look at roadkill?