How come the editors did not remember that during World War II the Times vastly downplayed, gave only some small back of the book treatment to, the holocaust, which it, like the British and American governments, knew was occurring. It barely ran this news because the Jewish owners of the paper thought it might increase American anti-Semitism, but one result for sure of not running the story was that this contributed to the Nazis continuing to unmolestedly operate their six-million-dead death camps. That suppression of a story was a real winner, huh?
How come the editors did not remember that their predecessors’ credulousness with regard to the writing of one of the Times’ own reporters, Herbert Mathews, led to falsely glowing reports to the American people about the Castro of the Sierra Maestra, and for that matter, a Times reporter named Walter Duranty had issued similarly glowing, credulous reports about Stalin and Russia in the 1930s. And none of this is even to mention the previously discussed credulousness of Judith Miller, Michael Gordon and the editors in signing up for and taking the lead in propagating Bush’s bullshit about WMDs, which got us into the Iraq war.
And how come the Times’ editors forgot to remember, in October and November 2004, that the government had lied for years on end about Viet Nam, that the Nixon administration had lied like a rug about Watergate for as long as it could, that Clinton had lied and dissembled as had his (“I’m no Tammy Baker standing up for her man”) wife?
How come all these lessons of journalistic history -- lessons teaching journalists to be very skeptical of, indeed to often and largely disbelieve, governmental statements -- were ones that Bill Keller and Phil Taubman forgot to remember? The country and the journalism profession being ahistorical, it is possible that one or two of the lessons may not have been known to the editors. But most must have been known to them, so lack of knowledge is not why they forgot to remember. The true reason, one would think, is simple: unreasoning -- and misplaced -- fear of politically inspired adverse consequences if they printed a story which the reporters thought true and that indeed was true. Keller would no doubt say the failure to publish was prudent caution. I call it misplaced cowardice that caused disaster.
The lesson-teaching episodes of journalistic history mentioned above are ones which, as opined earlier, should be taught in every journalism school and history department. More immediately, they, and the disastrous episodes of the Times credulousness about WMDs and the failure to publish in October/November 2004, show that the relevant lessons have not necessarily been absorbed, at least not sufficiently, and that the judgment of Bill Keller can be terrible in the crunch. And so might be Taubman’s and Arthur Sulzberger’s, to the extent they were involved with and supported these derelict actions. Personally, as said here before, I think that Keller and Sulzberg have shown themselves inept in the crunch and should be replaced. Maybe Taubman too.
You know, people sometimes ask me why, or comment on the fact that, I am so hard on the Times and Harvard. The answer to the question or comment is simple. These two institutions stand at the pinnacle of two vital American institutions, the media and the universities. All over the country people follow their lead. When either of these two institutions act incompetently, dishonestly or unethically, the lead they give, the trend they set, which others follow, is one of incompetence or unethicalness. It is no different than if, for example, the Mayo Clinic were to begin setting an example of unethical conduct in medicine (an example which has been set, I note, by some other leading medical institutions). For Mayo to set such an example, instead of setting the example that I read it does set, would be disastrous. It is the same for Harvard (which in recent years set horrible examples with regard to ghostwriting and endowment hoarding) and the Times. One should be hard on these institutions -- it is actually a tribute to them -- because we depend on them to set the nation an example of honesty, competence, ethics, etc. By the numerous governmental scandals it has regularly been unearthing in recent years, and by editorials it has been writing (though not by its misbegotten action of giving William Kristol yet another microphone for his right wing wackoism on its op ed page). The Times has been acting admirably of late and has seemed to be doing a sort of penance for the two horrible war-causing and war-prolonging misjudgments written of here. Yet it’s like anything else: when somebody has been responsible for horrendous misjudgments in the crunch -- misjudgments that facilitated war and then more war -- as Keller has and as I think Sulzberger and Taubman have, they should go. Raines was sacked for much less.
It is true that this is a country where losing football and basketball coaches, incompetent university presidents, corporate titans who bring disaster on their companies, and wacked out editorialists who are often or usually wrong if not absurd, go from strength to strength -- they keep their jobs, get lucrative new ones, and/or get fantastically lucrative golden parachutes. But all of this is bad and wrong. When people fail, or fail in the crunch, they should go. Period. Nor can all the penance in the world substitute for the vast mistakes discussed here, mistakes without which there would have been fewer, or few, policies requiring penance after mistakes were found to have been made.*
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