October 27, 2010, 6:50 a.m.
And see the earlier, expanded, "Unacceptable Remarks: Ex-NPR Juan Williams; What Words Warrant Firing?" October 22, 2010, and subsequent "More on NPR and Juan Williams; Some (Hopefully) Final Thoughts," Oct. 29, 2010.
Sacked for Speech
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
On October 27 the Iowa City Press-Citizen ran two columns related to NPR's firing of Juan Williams one week ago today. I wrote from one perspective. Shams Ghoneim, coordinator of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Iowa, wrote from her perspective. Ms. Ghoneim is also a community member of the Press-Citizen's Editorial Board. Her column is reproduced following mine.
# # #
NPR botched its firing of Juan Williams
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
October 27, 2010, p. A15
NPR fired Juan Williams.
They botched it.
Even NPR's own ombudsperson, under the headline "NPR's Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled," said of her organization, "a more deliberative approach might have enabled NPR to avoid what has turned into a public relations nightmare."
It's not the first time. NPR stirred up a comparable storm when it fired NPR pioneer Bob Edwards.
Fox TV immediately responded with a multi-million-dollar contract to keep Williams in grocery money. And the Congressional conservatives who never did like public broadcasting now want to eliminate NPR's funding.
NPR's CEO, Vivian Schiller, said Williams violated the rule that NPR employees should keep opinions to themselves, while offering her opinion that he should see his psychiatrist. (He has none.)
A number of persons were fired this year for a single utterance. Williams is only the latest in a long line that includes Tony Hayward, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Octavia Nasr, Rick Sanchez, Laura Schlessinger and Helen Thomas.
Williams "offense" is most like that of Shirley Sherrod, fired by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. In a 40-minute speech explaining her evolution regarding race-based reactions, she confessed to an early one of her own (a white farmer; ultimately she saved his farm).
Williams was interviewed on Fox by Bill O'Reilly, who was making some statements about "Muslims." Williams, a prize-winning civil rights author and advocate, said, "there are people who want to somehow remind us . . . it's not a war against Islam." After Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City federal building "you don't say first and foremost, we got a problem with Christians. That's crazy."
He warned, "Bill, here's a caution point. The other day in New York, some guy cuts a Muslim cabby's neck . . . or you think about the protest at the mosque near Ground Zero. ... We don't want in America, people to have their rights violated, to be attacked on the street, because they heard rhetoric from Bill O'Reilly and they act crazy."
In the course of taking on O'Reilly, he made his own Sherrod-like confession that, "when I get on the plane ... if I see people who are in Muslim garb and ... they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
It's not easy to have a "conversation" with Bill O'Reilly. But when Williams' confession is fairly evaluated in context, he was not saying "all Muslims are terrorists" anymore than Sherrod was saying all whites are unworthy. He, and she, meant just the opposite.
As Slate's William Saletan said, "Sometimes a confession of prejudice is part of a larger reflection on the perils of prejudice. That was true of Sherrod. And it's true of Williams."
Williams is saying in a country and age of suspicion and fear some people will respond emotionally as "worried and nervous" -- even when they know better intellectually, as he does. And that fact imposes an enhanced responsibility on those with microphones not to foment hate speech -- and actions.
The anxiety is not limited to Williams.
Jesse Jackson once said, "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."
NPR forbids "news analysts" expressing "opinions" and taking "personal public positions on controversial issues." But Williams' report of his emotional feelings on planes is a statement of fact, not opinion or advocacy, and certainly doesn't involve a "controversial issue."
New media don't help. Nasr was fired for a tweet, Thomas over an amateur video. Now Williams for a well-intentioned extemporaneous remark during a shouting match with O'Reilly.
NPR and other institutions can hire, and fire, whomever they please. But there are consequences -- for them, their employees, and all who believe in fairness and a robust democratic dialogue.
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Nicholas Johnson, a former FCC commissioner, teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law and maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org.
# # #
Addressing fear and xenophobia
Shams Ghoneim
Iowa City Press-Citizen
October 27, 2010, p. A15
Juan Williams, former NPR news analyst and now full-time Fox News political commentator, recently said that when he boards a plane and sees "people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, that they identify themselves first and most as Muslims, I get nervous and worried."
As a member of a minority community and an expert on the history of civil rights in the U.S., Williams should have known better than to publicly share both his ignorance and Islamo-phobia for profit and to create national controversy so close to the Nov. 2 election.
Ethical journalists should not mix their personal opinions with facts. And Williams -- in this most offensive and biased remark -- not only violated this journalistic code of conduct, but also used his public position to spread more prejudice and fear mongering against a minority religious community. Muslims in America have become a punching bag for right-wing commentators, public officials, fringe religious figures and even some elected officials.
This is not about freedom of speech. This is about journalistic ethics as well as the personal responsibility that go with this ethics. I feel compelled to ask, "What would Williams think if a white American were to say, 'Each time I get into a store or a plane, and I see a black man, I get nervous and worried?'"
Williams not only has offended millions of law-abiding American Muslims, but he also has demonstrated the worst kind of journalism. I personally think NPR was right to fire him for his bigoted statements alone. I'm disappointed that Williams chose to be in the company of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others. And if he wants to be in the company of such admired journalists such as Bill Moyers, Thomas Friedman, Christiane Amanpour or Fareed Zakaria, then I think Williams needs to re-evaluate his conduct as well as his professional goals.
But the Muslim Public Affairs Council recently issued a statement that criticized the firing of Williams.
The council stated, "In the past few months, a number of high profile commentators and journalists -- including Rick Sanchez, Dr. Laura Schlesinger and Helen Thomas -- have been fired or quit due to offensive comments they made. These incidents have made it clear that more discussions need to take place addressing race, religion and American identity in the face of xenophobia and fear."
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Shams Ghoneim is a community member of the Press-Citizen Editorial Board and the coordinator of the Muslim Public Affairs Council for Iowa.
# # #_______________
* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
# # #
October 22, 2010, 8:00 p.m.
And see Nicholas Johnson's published column on the subject, embedded in Nicholas Johnson, "NPR Botched Firing of Juan Williams; Sacked for Speech," October 27, 2010, and the subsequent reply to Press-Citizen readers' comments in "More on NPR and Juan Williams; Some (Hopefully) Final Thoughts," Oct. 29, 2010.
What Words Warrant Firing?
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Juan Williams, a former Washington Post reporter and prize-winning book author, is employed by Fox News and, until Wednesday evening, October 20, 2010, by NPR as well.
See Brian Stelter, "NPR Fires Analyst Over Comments on Muslims," New York Times, Oct. 21, 2010, p. B2; Brian Stelter, "Two Takes at NPR and Fox on Juan Williams," New York Times, Oct. 22, 2010, p. B1; "RAW DATA: NPR Internal Memo on Juan Williams," FoxNews.com, October 21, 2010 (Fox News publication of alleged NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller's internal memo regarding Williams' firing); Juan Williams, "I Was Fired for Telling the Truth," FoxNews.com, October 21, 2010; Alicia Shepard, "NPR's Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled," NPR Ombudsman, October 21, 2010.
His case would seem to bear more similarity to that of Shirley Sherrod and Octavia Nasr than Helen Thomas -- all of whom were also fired for a casual remark. That is to say, if one examines the entire transcript of the relevant portion of the Bill O’Reilly October 18, 2010, program on which Williams appeared, Williams was not criticizing, and certainly not condemning, all Muslims. In fact, if his blog comment is to be believed, he was doing exactly the opposite -– in the course of which, not incidentally, he was criticizing O’Reilly.
Williams statement was about himself, not Muslims. In the context of a discussion of the terrorists attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11, he conceded that even he felt a little nervousness when there were Muslims among the passengers on his plane. The point was, and is, as William Saletan put it in Slate.com, “Sometimes a confession of prejudice is part of a larger reflection on the perils of prejudice. That was true of Sherrod. And it's true of Williams.”
Moreover, given the totality of Williams remarks and writing, and that he continues to fly, it's clear that, intellectually, he has a fairly accurate benefit-cost sense of the mathematically insignificant risk of any plane he's on being blow up by Muslim terrorists.
Muslim extremists aside, there are individuals who have a fear of flying. They might be willing to concede that when they are on airplanes, like Williams, "I get worried; I get nervous" -- notwithstanding the fact that they, intellectually, know they are safer when flying on a commercial airline than when driving a car.
Since 9/11 the government has told Americans to be on alert, to report anything "suspicious." In calculating risks, irrational attitudes about race, religion and ethnicity may play a role in one's emotional response. None other than Jesse Jackson has said, "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." Remarks at a meeting of Operation PUSH, Chicago, November 27, 1993, quoted in Mary A. Johnson, "Crime: New Frontier -- Jesse Jackson Calls It Top Civil-Rights Issue," Chicago Sun-Times, November 29, 1993, and in Stephan Themstrom and Abigail Themstrom, America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 263. An African-American friend has told me of similar feelings when she is walking at night and followed by a number of African-American male teenagers.
Here's six minutes of video from the O'Reilly program in which Williams participated:
And here are some textual excerpts from the range of his comments on the show. It was his first response (to O’Reilly’s question, “So, where am I going wrong there, Juan?”) that has caused the furor. Williams replied:
I think you’re right. I think, look, political correctness [i.e., in this instance, a refusal to acknowledge the reality that a disproportionate share of the terrorists wishing, and practicing, harm to America claim to be doing so in the name of Islam] can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality.
I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.
Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts.
However, he immediately continued:
But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it’s not a war against Islam. President Bush went to a mosque –
. . . Wait a second though, wait, hold on, because if you said Timothy McVeigh, the Atlanta bomber, these people who are protesting against homosexuality at military funerals, very obnoxious, you don’t say first and foremost, we got a problem with Christians. That’s crazy.
. . . [Y]ou said in the talking points memo a moment ago that there are good Muslims, I think that’s a point, you know?
. . . But, Bill, here’s a caution point. The other day in New York, some guy cuts a Muslim cabby’s neck and says he’s attacking him or you think about the protest at the mosque near Ground Zero –
. . . I don’t know what is in that guy’s head. But I’m saying, we don’t want in America, people to have their rights violated to be attacked on the street because they heard a rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly and they act crazy. We’ve got to say to people as Bill was saying tonight, that guy is a nut.
After he was fired, Williams wrote in his blog:
Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims.
This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings, my fears after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by radical Muslims. In a debate with Bill O’Reilly I revealed my fears to set up the case for not making rash judgments about people of any faith. I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber -- as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals -- are Christians but we journalists don’t identify them by their religion.
And I made it clear that all Americans have to be careful not to let fears lead to the violation of anyone’s constitutional rights, be it to build a mosque, carry the Koran or drive a New York cab without the fear of having your throat slashed. Bill and I argued after I said he has to take care in the way he talks about the 9/11 attacks so as not to provoke bigotry.
CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on NPR to “address the fact that one of its news analysts seems to believe that all airline passengers who are perceived to be Muslim can legitimately be viewed as security threats.” While that is one possible interpretation of what he said, it is at least equally possible to conclude that he said precisely the opposite; that is, that all “perceived to be Muslim cannot legitimately be viewed as security threats.”
One can observe that, like Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack’s impetuous response to the selected excerpt from Shirley Sherrod’s speech without first examining the entire videotape or transcript, NPR’s executives also weakened their case by lifting a portion of Williams’ comments without considering, or at least crediting, its meaning in context.
Or one might suggest, as David Brooks did in the case of Nasr, that if any punishment was warranted, a fixed-time suspension might have made more sense than a dismissal.
Or if, as NPR claimed, it was Williams’ dual role of news analyst for NPR and commentator for Fox that had been a troublesome conflict and violation of its rules for years, it might have been a better strategy to wait a few weeks and slip the dismissal smoothly under the radar on those grounds than to jump on the specific statement of his that was chosen as "cause." Of course, this was not the first time NPR mangled what could have been a smooth departure. (“The decision by National Public Radio to replace [Bob] Edwards as Morning Edition anchor [in 2004] was one of the year’s more peculiar media stories.” “2005 Annual Report – Radio Content Analysis: NPR’s Bob Edwards,” Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, March 15, 2005.)
The NPR's own Ombudsperson seems to share some of my judgment about NPR's flawed process:
Williams . . . said he was told his contract was terminated without an opportunity to come into NPR and discuss the firing.
If he is correct, that’s too bad. I think NPR owed him a chance to explain himself.
I’m not privy to the why this announcement was so hastily made. NPR could have waited until his contract ran out, or possibly suspended him pending a review. Either way, a more deliberative approach might have enabled NPR to avoid what has turned into a public relations nightmare. Alicia Shepard, "NPR's Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled," NPR Ombudsman, October 21, 2010.
NPR CEO Vivian Schiller spoke to the Atlanta Press Club on October 21, 2010. Given her concern about her “news analysts” taking “personal public positions on controversial issues” because it “undermines their credibility,” and putting aside that Williams’ factual statement about his feelings while flying involved neither a “controversial issue” nor an "opinion," it is a mite ironic that NPR itself reports she was so quick to express her own opinion and “personal public position” that Juan Williams should have kept his feelings between himself and “his psychiatrist or his publicist.” Mark Memmott, "NPR CEO Apologizes for 'Psychiatrist' Remark," The Two-Way, NPR's News Blog, October 21, 2010.
Her kind of ad hominem outburst truly does "undermine credibility," suggests a motivation more of petulant personal pique than calm and balanced judment regarding NPR's best interests, and a lack of basic fairness and decency. It has undoubtedly contributed to, rather than ameliorated, what NPR's Ombudsperson has accurately characterized as a "public relations nightmare."
One suspects that NPR's objection was precipitated not so much by a violation of its "rules" for "news analysts" as for the content of Williams' remark (which was both taken out of context, and, as noted, was about his personal feelings of insecurity, not Muslims as such). One wonders if he would have been fired had he said, "Notwithstanding 9/11, when I get on a plane and see passengers dressed in Muslim garb, it makes me proud to be an American, and of the way we respect all people as individuals."
However, Williams was not fired because of his statements taken alone. He, like Octavia Nasr and Helen Thomas, is "a journalist" (most broadly defined). As such, a media employer has a legitimate interest in the public's perception of his absence of bias. Moreover, NPR has the legal right to fire him for any reason whatsoever (consistent with his contract). Nor is this a First Amendment case.
More significant in this instance, NPR certainly has a right to create its own rules regarding journalistic ethics, and preservation of the appearance of its reporters’ (what they call “news analysts”) impartiality. Having done so, it also has the right to investigate, judge, and impose penalties for the failure to comply with its rules.
NPR makes a distinction between what it calls "correspondents" (something similar to what are colloquially referred to as "reporters") and "news analysts." The latter presumably are supposed to interpret the news, tell the audience its significance, or perhaps provide "the back story." It is said that Williams "crossed the line" between "news analysis" and "opinion," or taking a "personal public position on controversial issues." But I can imagine that, at best, that "line" would sometimes be as blurred as the line downt the middle of the highway under a heavy morning fog.
Whether NPR's standards are too strict, ambiguous, difficult of administration, and were appropriately applied in this case are issues about which media owners, editors, journalists, media critics and academics will be debating for a considerable time to come.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
# # #
December 7, 2009, 10:00 a.m.
Media Watch: "Woman allegedly drove into backyard"
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Is the concept of "journalistic ethics" an oxymoron?
Yesterday's Press-Citizen resolved the issue once and for all. Not only does the journalistic profession have ethics, they are sometimes applied to excess.
Consider the paper's headline from yesterday: "Woman Allegedly Drove Into Backyard." Here is the story in its entirety (with the "driver's" name deleted:
An Iowa City woman was arrested early Saturday after she allegedly drove her vehicle drunk into the yard behind a house on Hotz Avenue in Iowa City, according to police.
Iowa City police responded at 3:06 a.m. Saturday and found the car still running with [name], 23, passed out behind the wheel, police said.
Officers woke [her] and found she had vomit on her clothing, a strong odor of alcohol, poor balance and was disoriented, police said.
Officers administered two tests to determine [her] blood-alcohol content. The preliminary breath test showed a blood-alcohol content of .155 and the DataMaster test showed a .146 blood-alcohol content, both above the legal limit of .08 to operate a motor vehicle in Iowa, police said.
[She] faces the charge of drunken driving. A number for [her] could not be found, and she could not be reached for comment.
I couldn't resist putting the following comment on the Press-Citizen's Web site reproduction of this story:
Let us address for a moment the use of the word "allegedly." It is commendable that the media has -- for the most part, and for some time now -- used the qualifier "allegedly" to avoid charging (and possibly defaming) someone with a false assertion of having committed a crime when there are not yet any formal findings or convictions.
However, when a woman is found by the police behind the wheel in a car with vomit on her clothing, and the engine running, in the backyard of her own or someone else's home, what are the possibilities other than that she drove there?
She and the car fell out of the tree. She was brought in by a tow truck, and left as a prank. Someone else drove the car into the back yard, brought the woman from elsewhere, vomited on her clothing, and placed her inside the car. The car simply materialized (though not yet even allegedly) having been beamed down from an alien craft of some sort.
Let it never again be said that "journalistic ethics" is an oxymoron.
12/7/2009 9:39:52 AM
To assert in a headline that someone is guilty of drunk driving when they have not yet been convicted would be one thing. But all that this headline "alleged" was that she "drove" -- albeit into someone's back yard. It seems to me, given the rest of this story, that the paper could have legitimately and ethically asserted as fact that she "drove into backyard."
With this kind of display of ethical caution let no one ever suspect that journalistic ethics is an oxymoron.
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For the recent blog entries you may be looking for, go to "There Is No War in Afghanistan," December 4, 2009, and go to the bottom of that blog entry.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
# # #
July 5, 2009, 11:00 a.m.
Post Publisher Blind to Journalism Ethics, Conflict
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
UPDATE (N.J., July 11, 2009): Having been caught in a disastrous ethical blunder, one can at least give the Post credit for having an ombudsperson and permitting him to investigate and reveal in a lengthy story the details of what happened, how and why. Ombudsman Andrew Alexander, "A Sponsorship Scandal at The Post," Washington Post, July 12, 2009.
[What follows is the blog entry as it appeared on July 5:]
Newspapers, and other media seeped in the responsibility and ethics of true journalists, have long agonized over their inherent conflicts of interest.
For starters, big media is big business; any stories or editorials that seem to side with business (over, say, unions or consumers) are open to the interpretation they are merely self-serving.
A major share of their income is provided by other big businesses in the form of advertising. If a positive story runs about a major advertiser, or a negative story is killed, it raises a question as to whether the special treatment was, in effect, purchased.
A reporter who covers a regular beat (such as the State Department, or the auto industry) develops contacts and relationships that can develop into social relationships and friendships. At a minimum, really tough, critical "investigative journalism" may result in those essential sources drying up.
To respond to the conflicts they can do something about, newspapers may preclude reporters from doing stories about organizations (or political parties or candidates) to which they belong, or with which they are identified. Family relationships can also come into play.
I recall when papers (including the Post if my memory's correct) would insist on paying reporters' travel and other expenses when covering, for example, the networks' events in Hollywood promoting their "new fall season" -- notwithstanding the organizations' more than willingness to pay to get the reporters there.
It is against this background that the Washington Post new (17 months in office) CEO stunned the journalism world last week with Politico's report that she was overtly selling to corporate special interests and their lobbyists the opportunity to mingle with the elected and appointed officials controlling their destiny. (These are people the Post's powerful CEO could expect to respond favorably to an invitation to dinner.) She would also supply the Post reporters writing the stories on which these companies' fortunes would often turn. And the setting would be, where else, her own private dining room at home.
To provide this kind of access, in this kind of setting, and with reporters present, no less, does the Washington lobbyists -- who sell the same service -- one better. And considering the fact they charge by the millions of dollars, she was essentially giving away these benefits -- at $25,000 per dinner, or $250,000 per series.
Here's how the mess was described by the normally sympathetic New York Times:
Katharine Weymouth, the relatively new publisher of The Washington Post, is a lawyer who worked for the company for 12 years and was educated at the Harvard School of Business, so she is hardly a naïf in running a business.
But she has never worked in a newsroom, a gap in her résumé that may have contributed to her current problems.
As first reported in Politico, The Washington Post had sent out a brochure offering sponsorships — a fee of $25,000 for one, or $250,000 for an entire series — for an exclusive “Washington Post salon” at Ms. Weymouth’s home in which officials from Congress and the administration, lobbyists and, yes, the paper’s own reporters could have a quiet, off-the-record dinner, discussions to be led by Marcus Brauchli, the newspaper’s editor. Theoretically, you can’t buy Washington Post reporters, but you can rent them.
I guess it sounded like a good idea at the time. Access, and its very close cousin, influence, define the Beltway. Millions of dollars are spent on having the right lobbyists, flacks and lawyers so that you can end up in a room with people who control your destiny. . . .
Initially, the salon controversy . . . was explained away as the unfortunate result of an unvetted brochure sent out by an overzealous marketing employee . . ..
But . . . at least two of the invitations to political participants . . . came from the personal e-mail address of Ms. Weymouth. Mr. Brauchli [the Post Editor] insisted that he had not realized the full implications of the events even though [the marketing employee] told The Post’s ombudsman that the plan was “well developed with the newsroom.”
The absence of a credible explanation, compounded a grievous wound . . ..
(The fact that it was Politico that broke this story only added to the sting. . . . In the increasingly heated race between the mainstream media and newer, digitally enabled ones, much of the remaining competitive edge for legacy media derives from a perception that they adhere to more rigorous publishing standards. Oops.) . . .
Mr. Brauchli['s] . . . explanation for the salon mess — I planned to attend but did not understand exactly what the party was — has not helped. . . .
Ms. Weymouth’s initial explanation for the salon fiasco, also broke another Washington Post tradition: those who are handed the sword generally fall on it when trouble comes. . . .
Ms. Weymouth’s excuse — that the salon brochure “completely misrepresented what we were trying to do” didn’t track with many reporters . . ..
“Oh really? Then what were they trying to do?” said one reporter . . ..
“The people I know in the newsroom are still waiting for a lot better answer to what the goal was here, what was really happening with this idea, and how it got so far along without raising red flags,” Mr. Stuever added.
The reporters . . . are also staring down the prospect of serving as a punch line in Beltway circles for many years to come. The president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, has already obliged by wondering aloud at a news conference whether he could afford to take a question from Michael Shear, a Post reporter.
Funny stuff, unless you are the reporter with your hand up. . . .
David Carr, "A Publisher Stumbles Publicly at the Post," New York Times, July 4, 2009, p. B1.
Well, this morning Ms. Weymouth had her turn -- and blew it. There are many lessons of journalism she has yet to learn -- at least this one of which she should have picked up at the Harvard Business School even if she had no experience with journalism.
There are always two stories following a public relations disaster. One is what was done -- in this case, creating a self-destructive conflict of interest by selling influence, and journalistic integrity, as a newspaper (and for a pittance).
The second story is how you handle it once you get caught. The Washington subway system, Metro, is currently dealing with this problem. So is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford with his "business" (monkey and otherwise) in Argentina. So is Governor Sarah Palin with her precipitous resignation.
And so was Katharine Weymouth this morning.
As the White House occupants seem to illustrate at least once every new Administration, it's a lesson seemingly hard to learn.
In fairness, here is a reproduction of her letter, in full, with no editing by me:
Dear Reader:
I want to apologize for a planned new venture that went off track and for any cause we may have given you to doubt our independence and integrity. A flier distributed last week suggested that we were selling access to power brokers in Washington through dinners that were to take place at my home. The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind. But let me be clear: The flier was not the only problem. Our mistake was to suggest that we would hold and participate in an off-the-record dinner with journalists and power brokers paid for by a sponsor. We will not organize such events. As publisher it is my job to ensure that we adhere to standards that are consistent with our integrity as a news organization. Last week, I let you, and the organization, down. The Washington Post remains committed, now and always, to the highest standards of journalistic integrity. Nothing is more important to us than that, and nothing will shake that commitment.
So what happened? Like other media companies, The Post hosts conferences and live events that bring together journalists, government officials and other leaders for discussions of important topics. These events make news and inform their audiences. We had planned to extend this business to include smaller gatherings, a practice that has become common at other media companies.
From the outset, we laid down firm parameters to ensure that these events would be consistent with The Post's values. If the events were to be sponsored by other companies, everything would be at arm's length -- sponsors would have no control over the content of the discussions, and no special access to our journalists.
If our reporters were to participate, there would be no limits on what they could ask. They would have full access to participants and be able to use any information or ideas to further their knowledge and understanding of any issues under discussion. They would not be asked to invite other participants and would serve only as moderators.
When the flier promoting our first planned event to potential sponsors was released, it overstepped all these lines. Neither I nor anyone in our news department would have approved any event such as the flier described.
We have canceled the planned dinner. While I do believe there is a legitimate way to hold such events, to the extent that we hold events in the future, large or small, we will review the guidelines for them with The Post's top editors and make sure those guidelines are strictly followed. Further, any conferences or similar events The Post sponsors will be on the record.
We all make mistakes and hope to be forgiven for them. I apologize to our readers for the mistakes I made in this case.
We remain committed to you, our readers. We remain committed to the highest standards of integrity. And while we will continue to pursue new lines of business, we will never allow those new avenues to compromise our integrity.
In the meantime, I hope that we can continue to count you as a reader while we promise to continue to bring you the news as it develops, unbiased and with the best reporting and editing we can offer.
Yours respectfully,
Katharine Weymouth
Publisher and CEO, The Washington Post
Katharine Weymouth, "A Letter to Our Readers" ["a planned new venture that went off track"], Washington Post, July 5, 2009.
It sort of sounds like one of those non-apology apologies, "I'm sorry if any of you feel bad about what I did -- and besides, I didn't really do it anyway."
On the one hand she says, "the flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors . . . Neither I nor anyone in our news department would have approved any event such as the flier described," and on the other hand she asks to be "forgiven . . . for the mistakes I made in this case."
If this was all, really, somebody else's fault just what, exactly, were "the mistakes [she] made in this case"?
She includes a variation on the child's plea, "but other mommies let their boys do it": "Like other media companies, The Post hosts conferences . . .. We had planned to extend this business ["business"!?] to include smaller gatherings, a practice that has become common at other media companies."
She says "Neither I nor anyone in our news department would have approved any event such as the flier described," and yet this was an event she had agreed to hold in her home for which she was the hostess and for which the Editor of the paper had agreed to be the discussion leader?
There's no way she can get out of this one. One possibility is that she full well knew what the paper was about to do -- with a private dinner at her home to which members of Congress were invited with emails from her personal account, and for which special interests would pay the paper between $25,000 and $250,000 -- and oversaw every detail (as Lyndon Johnson continued to do as president), including the flier, invitation list, seating arrangement and menu.
The other possibility is that she is so inattentive as CEO that a policy and event of this precedent-breaking magnitude, requiring her personal involvement, could go on below her radar -- either because she has precisely defined what should, and should not, be brought to her attention by others (and this was in the category of things not worthy of her attention), or because it was brought to her attention and she simply didn't bother to inform herself about the details.
Neither is a very comforting hypothesis for the "Dear Readers" to whom she wrote.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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April 5, 2009, 6:45 a.m.; April 6, 2009, 7:15 a.m. (now with appended "doctors' gag order" story)
The Story That Has Everything
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Friday I was blogging about Iowa's latest civil rights pride, Justice Cady's opinion for a unanimous Iowa Supreme Court upholding the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Nicholas Johnson, "Iowa's Civil Rights Leadership," April 3, 2009.
By Saturday an anonymous comment on that blog entry reminded me that the bloggers' responsibility is to do that which the local cheerleaders and boosters are sometimes reluctant to do -- support the local community by pointing out where it can improve rather than just where it has already excelled.
Here is that comment in its entirety:
Anonymous said...
Iowa may have a good record in some areas, however the newspapers and media fail miserably in others.
Why is an issue concerning full disclosure involving the U of Iowa covered in the Wall St Journal,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123776823117709555.html
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/health/research/01journal.html?ref=health
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03
30/AR2009033002765.html
The Economist
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13361480
Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=jama-editors-embroiled-in-brouhaha-2009-04-01
not even mentioned by local press? Scared of the U of Iowa? Not aware of the world?
Weird.
4/04/2009 06:41:00 PM
Needless to say, as is almost always the case, I have not a clue who "Anonymous" is in this case. But I did feel an obligation to follow up on his or her comment, especially since the author had been so kind as to provide me the links.
So why do I say the story has everything? Because it involves:
- Iowa City, the University of Iowa, its College of Medicine and Hospital
- ethical issues in the academy, especially with regard to research
- financial conflicts of interest
- the accuracy and adequacy of what passes for the "science" made available to the public, whether shaped by political ideology (as has been charged about the Bush Administration), corporate marketing and advertising, religious efforts to substitute creationism for evolution, distortions introduced by researchers or the media
- media ethics with regard to the influence of advertising on content, the reluctance/refusal to admit errors, and the human inclination to silence critics (and punish "whistle-blowers")
and
- if true, as the comment suggests, media ethics with regard to the pressures on local media to avoid stories that reflect adversely on major community institutions or advertisers
As is most often my practice, I won't mention the name of the Iowa City person at the center of the story. (a) My interest is in the issues set forth above, not personalities, (b) even if I had first-hand knowledge of the facts (which I don't), (c) those who need to know the name can easily find it elsewhere, and (d) none of the stories linked above provide him a full opportunity to tell his side of the story.
So to get the basic facts before us let me simply reproduce excerpts from one of the world's most prestigious publications, and the one published furthest from Iowa City, The Economist (with, of course, its British spelling):
In the past scientists sometimes managed to publish medical studies flogging the supposed benefits of some or other drug without disclosing that they had financial ties to the drug’s manufacturer. One of the leading voices arguing for full disclosure of such connections has been the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). . . .
So it comes as something of a shock to see [this] journal now engulfed by a scandal concerning its handling of precisely such a matter. . . .
The trouble started when JAMA published a study last May that looked at how best to prevent depression in patients recovering from strokes. A team of researchers, led by [the researcher] of the University of Iowa, compared the usefulness of “problem-solving therapy” (ie, talking) and escitalopram (a popular antidepressant drug also known as Lexapro) against a placebo. Lexapro is made by Forest Laboratories, an American firm under investigation by the Department of Justice for marketing that drug “for unapproved paediatric use and for paying kickbacks to induce physicians to prescribe”.
The study prompted much favourable coverage of Lexapro, thanks in part to kind words from the its authors. In USA Today, a widely read newspaper, [the researcher] insisted that “every stroke patient who can tolerate an antidepressant should be given one”. But the study itself did not support such a clear conclusion. Rather, it found that although both forms of treatment were better than a placebo, there was no statistical difference between the results from the use of talk therapy and the popping of Lexapro.
Alas, as Jeffrey Lacasse of Arizona State University and Jonathan Leo of Lincoln Memorial University pointed out in a letter published in JAMA last October, [the researcher] failed to clarify that important point in his paper. In a response published alongside the critical letter from Drs Lacasse and Leo, [the researcher] and his colleagues acknowledged that Lexapro performed no better than talk therapy in their study, but insisted this omission was not intended to mislead.
To make matters worse, though, he had taken money from Forest Laboratories but did not disclose this fact. That surfaced only because Dr Leo did a bit of Googling after his letter was published, and found out that [the researcher] had served in the past as a paid speaker for the firm.
Dr Leo informed JAMA of this non-disclosure, and was assured that the matter would be investigated. On his account of events, he then endured five months of silence before—assuming that JAMA was not going to act—he and Dr Lacasse published their revelations in a letter to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on March 5th. That set off a fiery response from JAMA. According to Drs Leo and Lacasse, Dr. [Catherine] DeAngelis [JAMA’s editor] rang up Dr Leo and his boss to express her displeasure in strong terms. They claim JAMA threatened to cut off access to its prestigious pages as punishment, but she denies that charge.
[The researcher] now acknowledges that he served as a paid member of Forest Laboratories’ speaker bureau “in 2004 and perhaps 2005”. His failure to disclose this violated JAMA’s policy, which insists on disclosure of such relationships going back five years. [The researcher] apologised in a letter published in JAMA on March 11th, blaming this omission as well as several other incidents on “errors of memory”. . . .
However, JAMA’s new editorial policy, announced nine days later, demands that similar whistle-blowers say nothing to the media or other journals during the weeks or months it decides to take to investigate. Both the editor of the BMJ and a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine have criticised this heavy-handed approach. What could possibly justify a policy that requires whistle-blowers to remain silent at an accused journal’s pleasure?
The JAMA editorial explains that the new policy arises from a desire to “ensure a fair process of investigation and above all, to protect the integrity of science and the reputation of JAMA.” The first two goals are laudable, but the rule of silence seems designed with the third, rather more self-serving, goal in mind. If JAMA is not careful how it implements its new policy, that may yet work against the first two goals.
Medical journals and ethics; Pity the Messenger: A Leading Journal Unveils a Controversial Policy on Financial Disclosures," Science and Technology, The Economist (print edition), March 26, 2009.
So what do we have here?
- A University of Iowa researcher publishes a paper extolling the efficacy of a pharmaceutical company's profitable drug in which he fails to reveal the research results that showed it did no more good than talking to the patients, and also fails to reveal that he has been taking money from the company -- and subsequently blames both omissions on "errors of memory." (And note that the "speaking fees" are only what a casual search of Google revealed; so far as I know no one has asked, or answered, what other payments over time may have been made to the researcher by the company.)
- Putting aside the ethical issues that creates, the consequences for the public are that, at best, patients (relying on what they are told by their doctors, who are in turn relying on what they've read in the academic literature) have been, at best, wasting their money while increasing America's exorbitant costs of health care, and at worst possibly harming their health (or at a minimum failing to get what might be for them a more effective treatment).
- A respected academic journal (JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association) is seemingly failing to apply its own standards, possibly with regard to peer review, but at least with regard to financial conflicts of interest -- engendering criticism from its peers, the New England Journal of Medicine and the British Medical Journal.
- This is the second story within the past month involving a rather severe "code of silence" within the medical profession regarding criticism of doctors. (The earlier one was that there is a growing movement of doctors who are requiring their patients to sign "gag statements." "Patients who sign [the standardized waiver agreement] agree not to post online comments about the doctor, 'his expertise and/or treatment.'" For the story see the very bottom of this blog entry.) What chutzpah! JAMA actually thinks it has the right to silence whistle-blowers while it's investigating their charges -- however long JAMA may choose to take for that investigation, presumably up to and including forever? I guess the procedure in the future should be that anyone wanting to call an error to JAMA's attention should first publish elsewhere and then let JAMA know about it in order to avoid the heavy sanctions of its censors -- following which JAMA would probably forbid that practice as well.
- I cannot really confirm or deny the assertion in the comment on Friday's blog entry that local media have failed to carry this story. I haven't seen it, but I may have missed it -- or it may even be in this morning's papers, or perhaps it was reported by them weeks ago. But I guess I would have to agree with "Anonymous" that, at a minimum, for local papers to fail to accord such a national, and global, story involving Iowa City any mention whatsoever really would be, at best, rather odd.
[Since writing this last paragraph, a comment from "Anonymous" on this blog entry has directed me to the "UI in the News" March 2009 archives, where the following stories are in fact noted. Whether that makes it better or worse that the Des Moines Register, Gazette, and Iowa City Press-Citizen failed to pick up the story from that source as well as the national and global media -- if in fact that's the case -- I'll leave to your judgment. It at least clarifies that the University was not trying to hide the story from the media and public. Here are the official reports of those stories from the University of Iowa's publication:
Conflict-of-interest case leads to new guidelines (Bloomberg, March 23)
The Journal of the American Medical Association is instructing people who unearth possible financial conflicts of interest in studies it has published not to go public with their complaint before editors have completed an investigation. Jonathan Leo, an associate professor of neuro-anatomy at Lincoln Memorial University, uncovered a researcher's financial conflict of interest. The lead author, [the researcher] at the University of Iowa, had previously served on the speaker's bureau of Forest Laboratories. He didn't disclose the relationship in the publication of the study.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a9E8PPudI5b4
New JAMA policy involved UI case (Wall Street Journal, March 22)
The Journal of the American Medical Association says it is instituting a new policy for how it handles complaints about study authors who fail to disclose they have received payments from drug companies or others that pose a conflict. It comes after JAMA was criticized for taking five months to acknowledge that a study it published last year on the use of antidepressants in stroke patients was authored by a UNIVERSITY OF IOWA [researcher] who failed to disclose he had a financial relationship with the maker of the drug.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123776823117709555.html.]
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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Lindsey Tanner, "Docs seek gag orders to stop patients' reviews," Associated Press [as reproduced by Townhall.com], March 4, 2009.
The anonymous comment on the Web site RateMDs.com was unsparing: "Very unhelpful, arrogant," it said of a doctor. "Did not listen and cut me off, seemed much too happy to have power (and abuse it!) over suffering people." Such reviews are becoming more common as consumer ratings services like Zagat's and Angie's List expand beyond restaurants and plumbers to medical care, and some doctors are fighting back.
They're asking patients to agree to what amounts to a gag order that bars them from posting negative comments online.
"Consumers and patients are hungry for good information" about doctors, but Internet reviews provide just the opposite, contends Dr. Jeffrey Segal, a North Carolina neurosurgeon who has made a business of helping doctors monitor and prevent online criticism. . . .
His company, Medical Justice, is based in Greensboro, N.C. For a fee, it provides doctors with a standardized waiver agreement. Patients who sign agree not to post online comments about the doctor, "his expertise and/or treatment."
"Published comments on Web pages, blogs and/or mass correspondence, however well intended, could severely damage physician's practice," according to suggested wording the company provides.
Segal's company advises doctors to have all patients sign the agreements. If a new patient refuses, the doctor might suggest finding another doctor. Segal said he knows of no cases where longtime patients have been turned away for not signing the waivers.
Doctors are notified when a negative rating appears on a Web site, and, if the author's name is known, physicians can use the signed waivers to get the sites to remove offending opinion.
RateMd's postings are anonymous, and the site's operators say they do not know their users' identities. The operators also won't remove negative comments.
Angie's List's operators know the identities of users and warn them when they register that the site will share names with doctors if asked.
Since Segal's company began offering its service two years ago, nearly 2,000 doctors have signed up. In several instances, he said, doctors have used signed waivers to get sites to remove negative comments.
John Swapceinski, co-founder of RateMDs.com, said that in recent months, six doctors have asked him to remove negative online comments based on patients' signed waivers. He has refused.
"They're basically forcing the patients to choose between health care and their First Amendment rights, and I really find that repulsive," Swapceinski said.
He said he's planning to post a "Wall of Shame" listing names of doctors who use patient waivers.
Segal, of Medical Justice, said the waivers are aimed more at giving doctors ammunition against Web sites than against patients. Still, the company's suggested wording warns that breaching the agreement could result in legal action against patients.
Attorney Jim Speta, a Northwestern University Internet law specialist, questioned whether such lawsuits would have much success.
"Courts might say the balance of power between doctors and patients is very uneven" and that patients should be able to give feedback on their doctors' performance, Speta said.
Angie Hicks, founder of Angie's List, said her company surveyed more than 1,000 of its consumer members last month, and most said they had never been presented with a waiver; 3 percent said they would sign one.
About 6,000 doctors reviewed on the Angie's List site also were asked to comment. Only 74 responded, and about a fifth of them said they would consider using them.
Lenore Janecek, who formed a Chicago-based patient-advocacy group after being wrongly diagnosed with cancer, said she opposes the waivers.
"Everyone has the right to speak up," she said.
While she's never posted comments about her doctors, she said the sites are one of the few resources patients have to evaluate physicians.
The American Medical Association has taken no position on patient waivers, but President Dr. Nancy Nielsen has said previously that online doctor ratings sites "have many shortcomings." . . .
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