Is Bill Keller on Crack?
Have you been following the brouhaha about Allessandra Stanley* and Geraldo Rivera? I'm a little late to the story, but I'm fascinated by it. Stanley's the TV critic for the Times, and Geraldo is, of course, Geraldo.
In a September 5th column on reporters in New Orleans, Stanley wrote this sentence: ""Fox's Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety."
Geraldo went ballistic, loudly proclaiming that he'd done no such thing and announcing that if Stanley were a man, he'd challenge him/her to a fight. Rivera demanded a correction;
Times managing editor Bill Keller refused to give him one.
The
Times' public editor, Byron Calame, subsequently disagreed. After watching the videotape upon which Stanley based her allegation, he said, "My viewings of the videotape - at least a dozen times, including one time frame by frame - simply doesn't show me any 'nudge' of any Air Force rescuer by Mr. Rivera." As if to drive home the point that Stanley won't stand behind her reporting, Calame added that "Ms. Stanley declined my invitation to watch the tape with me."
Calame is obviously right; Keller and Stanley are obviously wrong. How do I know that? Listen to Keller's reasoning, in a widely distributed e-mail, in defense of Stanley.
Keller writes: "It was a semi-close call, in that the video does not literally show how Mr. Rivera insinuated himself between the wheelchair-bound storm victim and the Air Force rescuers who were waiting to carry her from the building. Whether Mr. Rivera gently edged the airman out of the way with an elbow (literally 'nudged'), or told him to step aside, or threw a body block, or just barged into an opening - it's hard to tell, since it happened just off-camera."
Let's use the kind of linguistic precision that a
Times editor ought to use and deconstruct that a bit. Start with the first sentence: "...the video does not
literally show how Mr. Rivera insininuated himself....."
In fact, the word "literally" is a fudge that any decent college newspaper editor would know better than to rely upon. The video either shows something, or it doesn't. Obviously, it doesn't. The correct way to write that sentence: "
The video does not show how Mr. Rivera insuated himself..."
I could go on—"a semi-close call"..."it happened
just off-camera..."—but you get the point. Keller's indulging in weasel language.
According to Calame, Keller then added that "'frankly,' that in light of Mr. Rivera's reaction to the review, Ms. Stanley 'would have been justified in assuming' - and therefore writing, apparently - that Mr. Rivera used 'brute force' rather than merely a 'nudge' on Sept. 4. "
In other words, the
Times can run an allegation about someone that it has no proof of—and then declare its correctness based on the person's reaction to the smear. In fact, the Times can actually
embellish the original charge.
Huh.
I don't think they teach that technique in journalism school.
At the end of the web version of Stanley's story, you will now find this wan disclaimer:
"The editors understood the 'nudge' comment as the television critic's figurative reference to Mr. Rivera's flamboyant intervention. Mr. Rivera complained, but after reviewing a tape of his broadcast, The
Times declined to publish a correction.
"Numerous readers, however - now including the newspaper's public editor, who also scrutinized the tape - read the comment as a factual assertion. The
Times acknowledges that no nudge was visible on the broadcast."
The editors understood the "nudge" to be figurative? Oh, bullshit. If the "nudge" was figurative, then it simply wasn't a story, and no editor would have allowed it, because if it was figurative, then it had no point.
The
Times should just admit that Stanley made up an assertion about Geraldo Rivera because she wanted to juice up her story and Rivera's an easy target....and Bill Keller should lay off that pipe.
* Full disclosure: I've had my own issues with Stanley, who once included me in a trend story about "underlings" who write "revenge" tell-alls about their former bosses, despite the fact that American Son couldn't fit that description less. I've also had issues getting a correction from the Times, such as when Style section writer Bob Morris included me in a trend story about the return of "gall" for writing a book about John Kennedy after criticizing others who spoke out about him after his death (long story, this isn't the time)—without mentioning that he was one of those publicly slammed (not by me) for his on-air milking of his (slender) connection to John. This would seem an important thing to disclose to the reader, no? Try telling that to the Times editor who told me to "write a letter," and then refused to print that part of the letter.....
