Darts & Laurels
Dart for some disturbing demonstrations of dubious news judgment, to:
The
Nation
In its October 21 issue, the magazine carried, in a section headed
"In Fact," a dispatch by one Robert Weissman about a
late September weekend of anti-IMF activities in Washington whose
attendance he reported, without qualification, to be a gratifying
"10,000." The number was markedly higher than those
cited as estimates by other news outlets, and even by some activists
— activists, that is, other than Weissman, who, though not
identified as such in the article, was one of the protest's
chief organizers.
The
Washington Post
When, on September 28, hundreds of thousands of people turned
out for anti-war demonstrations in Europe, the Post ignored the
event until two days later. In an October 6 column, Michael Getler,
the paper's ombudsman, observed, "When something happens
and the Post doesn't report it in a timely and proper fashion,
readers get more concerned. Me, too."
The
Washington Post (again)
After 100,000 anti-war protesters showed up at a similar rally
in the Post's own hometown on October 26, Getler once more
criticized his paper's coverage — a Metro-section story
and a lower-page-one photo linked, oddly enough, to a story about
a setback in efforts to enlist South Korea and Japan in the coalition
against Iraq. Concluding that such an outpouring of people from
all around the country had deserved full front-page treatment,
Getler explained the "fumbled" story in terms of dubious
news judgment rather than, as some had charged, "pro-war
bias."
The
San Diego Union-Tribune
Its reader's representative, Gina Lubrano, was similarly
moved to take her paper to task for, as the headline put it, PLAYING
DOWN THE ANTI-WAR PROTESTS: news about the demonstrations in Washington,
San Francisco, and elsewhere had been "buried deep in the
newspaper" — on page 25, to be precise. "It doesn't
matter whether you're pro- or anti-war," Lubrano wrote,
"when thousands and thousands of people in this country come
together on the same day to protest administration policy in a
foreign land, it is news."
The
Star Tribune
The Minneapolis paper's "bungled" (in the judgment
of its reader representative, Lou Gelfand) report on an October
26 anti-war rally in St. Paul — a rally that drew an independently
estimated crowd of more than 10,000 demonstrators — put attendance
at "several thousand" and was placed, sans photograph,
on page 22, under the headline RALLIES REMEMBER WELLSTONE.
The
New York Times
Curious and curiouser was the paper's handling of the October
26 anti-war rally in Washington: first, on October 27, a 476-word,
page 8 piece reporting that "fewer people attended than organizers
had said they hoped for" and attributing the poor turnout
to fears about the sniper shootings in the area; then, on October
30, a 936-word, page 17 piece — making no reference to the
earlier one — reporting that the anti-war demonstration,
which had drawn "100,000 by police estimates and 200,000
by organizers,'" had "startled even organizers,
who had taken out permits for 20,000 marchers." Go figure.
Laurel
to The Atlanta Business Chronicle for
intercepting a highway robbery. While the state considered proposals
to build a controversial $2.2 billion, fifty-nine-mile east-west
connector called the Northern Arc — a project requiring multimillions
in taxpayers' dollars for right-of-way acquisitions —
Chronicle reporters Walter Woods and Sarah Rubenstein were exploring
some slippery connections between decision-makers, investors,
relatives, and cronies. (One plan, for example, was to link directly
to the Northern Arc land owned by the son of the chairman of the
board of the Department of Transportation.) Soon The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
was riding on the Chronicle's tail, reporting on still more
conflicts among those with the power to move the matter in one
direction or another. By summer, both papers were reporting that
the administration had parked the entire project until the state
assembly passes tougher ethics laws. The assembly convenes in
January.
Laurel
to The Portland Press Herald and staff writer
Barbara Walsh, for a heartrending probe of systemic
failure. As parents of mentally ill children in Maine know all
too well, the services there are so fragmented, the money so misdirected,
and the policies so perverse as to actually be destructive to
the children and their families. Now, an outraged public knows
it too, thanks to Walsh's eye-opening exposé, "Castaway
Children: Maine's Most Vulnerable Kids." Drawing on
hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents, the three-part
series revealed a crazy quilt of priorities that keeps children
in crisis waiting months and years for help, sends them to emergency
rooms or juvenile lockup for want of adequate programs, and may
even force families to give up custody of their children so the
state can qualify for federal coverage of their treatment elsewhere.
Mercifully, relief is on the way: citizens, legislators, and the
recently elected governor have at last come to recognize the magnitude
of the problem and the desperate need for humane reform.
Darts & Laurels is written by Gloria Cooper, CJR's deputy executive editor. Nominations may be addressed to her by mail, phone (212-854-1887), or e-mail (gc15@columbia.edu).
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