Every day the Daily News staff gets an e-mail from VinceFilak, the faculty adviser. The e-mail is a detailed -- sometimesTolstoy-long -- breakdown of the day's paper. In it, Vince oftenexpounds on basic tenants of journalism.
Two weeks ago, Vince spent some time discussing accuracy inreporting, referring to it as "the main pillar in our business,"and after watching the reporting for "Survivor: California," Ialmost forwarded that e-mail to the Los Angeles Times.
The Thursday before Arnold's runaway tribal-council win, theTimes published a story alleging that Arnold had groped severalwomen. Two more stories with similar allegations ran the followingdays, and the Times threw in an "Arnold loves Hitler" reference foreffect on Election Day.
One problem: all the stories lacked evidence.
One victim's story came from a previously debunked allegationprinted in 2001. One woman claimed that, 22 years ago, Arnoldpulled her into a movie-set bed, then let her leave withouttouching her.
These were among the strongest of the considerably weakallegations. The others were even more nebulous. All lackedsufficient back up to warrant consideration, let alone publication.None had previously come forward to accuse Schwarzenegger.
The lynchpin was Schwarzenegger's supposed admiration of Hitler.This was the most-blatant lie. Schwarzenegger has consistentlyrepudiated Hitler's views and bankrolled Jewish causes for years.Schwarzenegger simply said he admired Hitler's public-speakingability. The Times blatantly misquoted the actor and got caught.They have yet to retract it.
All of the stories lacked factual verification, but the Timesran them anyway. They put three reporters on the story for sevenweeks, and they produced unverifiable allegations, and the editorsprinted them. Jason Blair Syndrome has now reached the LeftCoast.
The Times is taking it on the chin for serving as a Gray Davishatchet squad. Thousands have canceled subscriptions in protest.Condemnation has poured in from all angles and even fromprofessional news organizations. Susan Estrich, who ran Al Gore'spresidential campaign, provided the most prescient comment, saying,"What this story accomplishes is less an attack of Schwarzeneggerthan a smear on the press."
Therein lies the rub. The actions taken by the Los Angeles Timeshas destroyed their credibility and weakened the credibility ofother news organizations in the process. Citizens' trust in themain news organizations has waned in recent years. An incident likethis is one more nail in that coffin.
A news organization allowing something like this to occur isdisgusting. Shoddy reporting violates the public's trust.Journalists are trusted to accurately report what happens in theworld and not put their proclivities ahead of the facts.
I said it this past summer, and I will say it again: Journalismis about reporting the facts without prejudice and with passion.The Times put their passions and politics ahead of truth andprostituted their credibility to Gray Davis' interests.
Vince Filak has it right: journalism's mainstay is its accuracy.Without accurate reporting, a paper becomes the Weekly World Newsin a different typeface.
Write to Jeff at mannedarena@yahoo.com
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