|
You have to laugh at the Jayson
Blair scandal. A young African-American reporter on the
New York Times has been
found to have lied
again and again, without being fired – apparently
for reasons of “affirmative action,” compounded by
Times Editor
Howell Raines` “white Southern
guilt.”
Blair not only made things up, and
plagiarized, but he lied about his whereabouts, telling
editors he was calling from Virginia and Maryland, when
he was still in
New York.
The scandal has led people to
recall the NYT`s mendacious record on both
Stalin and
Castro. But it `s also worthwhile recalling the
story behind New York Times v. Sullivan,
the famous 1964 Supreme Court decision that effectively
rewrote libel law for American public figures.
Sullivan
has been cited as a prime example of
“judicial realism” – the cynical view that judges
just make up their minds and then adjust the law to
fit their personal vision of how things should be.
In Sullivan, the "Committee
to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for
Freedom in the South" was sued by a white southern
public official, L. B. Sullivan. He contended that he
had been defamed by an ad in the New York Times,
which became a co-defendant. [See the original ad,
PDF,
JPG].
Justice
William Brennan said in the
decision that “It is uncontroverted that some of
the statements contained in the two paragraphs were not
accurate descriptions of events which occurred in
Montgomery.”
Which is to say that the
statements weren`t true.
The advertisement was signed by
Hollywood stars, and also by several black clergymen in
the South (who said that they had not authorized the use
of their names.)
But “Judicial Realism” meant that
there was simply no darned way that the Supreme Court
was going to rule for a white Southern segregationist,
and against the Civil Rights Movement. Justice Brennan
decreed public figures had to prove
“actual malice” , i.e. that the untruths were
deliberate. This “Actual Malice Standard,” combined with
later decisions that made
almost anyone in the news a
“public figure”, effectively meant the end of libel
protection in the United States.
This is a good thing for those of
us who like to
criticize politicians. But it cuts both ways: the
SPLC can call VDARE.COM all the names it wants. And
the reviewers of
Alien Nation and
The Bell Curve obviously didn`t feel “chilled”
by the possibility of a libel suit.
Sullivan
protects me, when I
criticize Linda Chavez. And it protects Peter
Brimelow when he uses the word “treason.”
[Peter Brimelow says:
That`s different. Immigration enthusiasm is
treason!]
The New York Times
has a worldview. And it continues to
lie about some things,
ignore or
minimize others,
inflate stories that fit its worldview, and to
hide from criticism.
Now, I don`t think that the
government should be in the business of enforcing the
truth. Blogger Jeff Jarvis
views with alarm the fact that the U.S. Attorney is
looking into the Jayson Blair case. (I`m sure it
would be possible to call Blair`s conduct “fraud.”)
Someone has even suggested
suing the Times on a class-action theory. Tsk
tsk.
But it`s fascinating to see the
Times suffering the consequences of
affirmative action, a system it has defended, and
tried to deny using in this case. (Possibly because
affirmative action is
illegal.)
And you have to wonder: why is it
OK the New York Times to lie but not its
employee?
Finally, lest we forget: there`s
one young reporter whose name we don`t know, who hasn`t
been mentioned in any report of the Blair scandal.
That`s the young reporter
Jesse Helms was anticipating in his famous
“white hands” ad; [watch].
The young reporter who
needed a job, but they “had to give it to a
minority. Is that really fair?”
The young reporter displaced by
Jayson Blair may be better off working on the city desk
at the Toledo Blade – or, more probably, outside
the media business altogether- than working in
New York for the “paper of record.”
But neither this
invisible victim nor the nation he might have served
will ever know.
Reference the above piece using this permanent URL:
/articles/the-son-of-sullivan-and-the-invisible-victim#son
|
