May 12, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Special Sauce for the Old Grey Goose
I haven't had much to say on all Blair all the time, just because I can see just how this could happen to The New York Times, it being a great big honkin' bureaucracy and all. The following, however, jumped out at me during my morning read as too funny after all the moralizing we businessmen-Times readers have had to endure on the Grey Lady's editorial pages.
Arthur Sulzberger announced today a new and lower standard for "public trusts" (via the Wall Street Journal no less, so the link requires subscription)
In a telephone interview, Mr. Sulzberger said there is little that anyone could have done to prevent Mr. Blair, who had worked at the Times nearly four years, from putting false information into the paper. "Do we have a system designed to uncover venality? No, we don't, and you know something, I guess I am not unhappy with that," Mr. Sulzberger said. "I don't want us to become a police state where you suspect every employee of ripping off the company."
Mr. Sulzberger would, for instance, "be unhappy" with measures such as:
- Independent private and regulatory audits;
- Records of interactions with the public and all internal email retained for seven years on specified searchable media;
- Mandatory continuous use of vacation time to uncover fraud;
- Pointless and annoying exams on record-keeping, how to interact with the public and how to trip up your own people;
- all correspondence reviewed prior to receipt or posting;
- a centralized public record of complaints related to employees;
After all, no business should "have a system designed to uncover venality." That would be like becoming a "police state where you suspect every employee of ripping off the company." Unless, of course, you are a financial services firm, in which case we can safely assume you are out to rip off someone.
I look forward to The Times applying Mr. Sulzberger's standard to its editorial evaluation of the next accounting or rogue-trading scandal.
P.S. What is it with "venal" these days? It seems to have become the mot du jour for the politically correct. Since money does not seem to have been at the core of Jayson Blair's motivation, Sulzberger's choice of words is rather odd.
To paraphrase Anthony Blanche "I wanted to spring into a cab and cry 'take me to Jayson's venal articles'".
UPDATE: Patrick Sullivan points to the following in the comments (this editorial also quoted in the New York Sun's editorial yesterday):
"[T]he move to hold top managers personally liable for anyPosted by Mindles H. Dreck at May 12, 2003 10:08 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
misrepresentations made to investors - which the new corporate oversight
legislation also does - is a watershed worth celebrating.C.E.O's will no
longer be able to feign ignorance about the details of the companies'
accounting, as Jeffrey Skilling haughtily did early this year at a
Congressional hearing on Enron's implosion."--The New York Times, editorial, "Downsizing the Imperial C.E.O.," August 9,
2002
"But Mr. Sulzberger emphasized that as The New York Times continues to
examine how its employees and readers were betrayed, there will be no
newsroom search for scapegoats. 'The person who did this is Jayson Blair,'
he said. 'Let's not begin to demonize our executives - either the desk
editors or the executive editor or, dare I say, the publisher.'"--The New York Times, news article, "Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long
Trail of Deception," May 11, 2003
From leftist activisit sweatshops to leftist newspapers' disregard for the truth- I suspect that next week we'll hear about leftist governments' mass murders.
I fear (with a shudder) that many of them mean "venial" and don't know what that means either.
venal = evil, without the unPC religious overtones.
Blair got hired by Michael Moore to write the movie on Disney's Farenheit 9/11. GIVE ME A BREAK!
Everything is about PUBLICITY. Terror in Riyadh? Money in the bank for the newspapers.
Oh, you didn't think it made sense?
Well, the terrorists live to read about themselves in the paper.
Atrocities didn't stop when Hitler or Stalin were failing ...
So, exactly how does the Grey Lady ever get back her reputation now that she's in the street, and everyone can see her split beaver?
Too old to get an offer in Times Square? Excuse me?
since when didn't venal have moral overtones???
has no one been paying attention in sunday school?? venal vs mortal sins...
ugh...
LUA: I'm not a Catholic, but I believe they have "venial" sins rather than venal ones. Although, in the case of the priests, mainly mortal ones.
From the American Heritage dictionary...
ve·ni·al - adj. 1. Easily excused or forgiven; pardonable: a venial offense. 2. Roman Catholic Church. Minor, therefore warranting only temporal punishment.
ve·nal - adj. 1.a. Open to bribery; mercenary: a venal police officer. b. Capable of betraying honor, duty, or scruples for a price; corruptible. 2. Marked by corrupt dealings, especially bribery: a venal administration. 3. Obtainable for a price.
This doesn't surprise me at all. In my experience, the media think their needs trump all other concerns, from the dignity of disaster victims to the right of a criminal defendant to a fair trial.
The rest of us should be kept in regulatory cages, but media should have no internal or exteral controls whatever, and no one should even question them. I think that's what they teach in j-schools as constitutional law.
This morning an e-mail correspondent pointed out these two pieces to me:
"[T]he move to hold top managers personally liable for any
misrepresentations made to investors - which the new corporate oversight
legislation also does - is a watershed worth celebrating.C.E.O's will no
longer be able to feign ignorance about the details of the companies'
accounting, as Jeffrey Skilling haughtily did early this year at a
Congressional hearing on Enron's implosion."
--The New York Times, editorial, "Downsizing the Imperial C.E.O.," August 9,
2002
"But Mr. Sulzberger emphasized that as The New York Times continues to
examine how its employees and readers were betrayed, there will be no
newsroom search for scapegoats. 'The person who did this is Jayson Blair,'
he said. 'Let's not begin to demonize our executives - either the desk
editors or the executive editor or, dare I say, the publisher.'"
--The New York Times, news article, "Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long
Trail of Deception," May 11, 2003
"I don't want us to become a police state where you suspect every employee of ripping off the company."
That's all well and good, but it's not like Mr. Blair was caught dipping into the petty cash. It would have been nice if Sulzberger would have acknowledged some sort of obligation to his readers. It wasn't just the company getting ripped off in this case.
> It would have been nice if Sulzberger would have acknowledged some sort of obligation to his readers.
He's satisfied that obligation. The paper is on the porch, complete with the smug feeling of reading the greatest newspaper in the world.
Yes, Blair made things up, but that's small potatoes at the NYT.
Love the update. Carol, I think that was satire.
I can't help but feel that there is also an element of projection here; the New York Times also acted as the conduit for a lot of untruths told to it by another man named Blair in its coverage leading up to the Iraq war, but to admit that would be too psychologically painful.
How many of you haven't run across Jayson Blair in your work life? Come on. It seems clear to me that, along with the NYT fear of legal issues, Blair went as far as he did with good old-fashioned ass-kissing. I'm sure the few folks who pointed out that Blair was a problem ("Must stop writing for the Times now") are now getting bad performance reviews - if you were aware of this, why didn't you act more decisively? Ah, the joys of the corporate world.
We should set him up on a date with Blair Hornstine. Both of them seem eager and able to do anything except the work put in front of them. After they marry, Blair Blair will host a short-lived talk show and then move on to a somewhat lucrative career as an American Idol judge and talking head on VH1 specials, game shows. She will be credited as a "television personality and disability right activist." Jayson will stay home with the children, except for the 51 weeks a year when he's on the road promoting his book about being a stay-at-home dad and conducting seminars about getting in touch with your children. He will also sell educational DVDs, "StoryTime with Daddy."
D^2, it would only be projection if they'd made up the words that Tony Blair said. Like if Jayson had been sent to interview Tony (which probably would have happened in the next 6-9 months if that reporter in Texas hadn't figured out that he'd been ripped off).
I'd say the overuse of "venal" is pent-up release from all of the times it should have been used in recent years. Such as, for example, most stories about the Clinton Administration or Jesse "Have My Bribe Check in The Mail Or Your Ass is Picketed and Boycotted" Jackson.
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