Brace Yourself: Bad Journalism Alert
I spent a lot of time on the phone today with reporters from various news organizations—quite large ones, actually—who suddenly had to whip up a report on Larry Summers and didn't have the faintest idea what was going on at Harvard. I tried to be fair and balanced, blah-blah-blah, but the exercise was a test of patience, filled with questions such as, "What is this curricular review thing again?", "How do you spell 'Schleifer?"—that's a tough one, actually—and "JFK did go to Harvard, right?"
The point is, there are a lot of reporters that haven't been paying attention to what's going on at Harvard who are now rushing to get up to speed, and invariably, the results won't be pretty.
Case in point: Lois Romano's report in the Washington Post, which clearly gives the impression that the inmates are running the asylum and Larry Summers been done wrong.
The first two grafs are boilerplate factual stuff. Romano then writes in her third graf, "Summers's announcement comes after several weeks of inflamed rhetoric by his opponents on the faculty."
Inflamed rhetoric? Oooh—sounds dramatic. Would be nice if she quoted some. But perhaps that is too much to ask. Better just to categorize it.
Anyway, speaking of inflamed rhetoric, Romano then goes on to quote Alan Dershowitz, who gives no indication of knowing about what is going on at Harvard College and seems to care about it even less. But when you have no idea what's going on at Harvard and you need a quote fast, Alan Dershowitz is your man.
Here's Romano: "
It's a real tragedy for Harvard," said Alan Dershowitz, law professor of long-standing at Harvard and a Summers supporter. "It says that one group of faculty managed a coup d'etat not only against Summers but against the whole Harvard community. He is widely supported among students and in the graduate schools."
A real tragedy. A coup d'etat against the whole Harvard community.
Nope. No inflamed rhetoric there.
Meanwhile, an assertion—totally unsupported—that Summers has wide support among the graduate schools. Maybe Dershowitz is right, maybe Summers did. But Romano is wrong to just let him throw that out there without any context.
And then inevitably Romano quotes that silly Crimson poll—you knew this was coming—without any discussion of its methodological problems or any context to the effect that most undergraduates have no idea and really don't care about what's going on with the Harvard administration.
In the next-to-last paragraph of the story, Romano then quotes an anonymous Summers critic who says, "This man could never get over not being the smartest man in the room. This is Harvard--we all have to get used to it."
With all the people who have eloquently gone on the record talking about their criticism of Summers—Peter Ellison, anyone?—this slightly muddled quote, buried at the end of her story, is the best Romano can do?
And then, the final insult. Romano writes: "Although Summers's supporters remained steadfast, sources say that some began to feel that his presence was disruptive and distracting to the school."
Summers' supporters remained steadfast? I'm sorry, but I think that is objectively wrong. Dershowitz did, true. So did Weiss and Mansfield. But Gergen, Pinker, Katz, Thernstrom and others all backed away from Summers. One reason the second vote did not take place is because Summers supporters were
not remaining steadfast.
Romano's piece is just sloppy, rushed journalism. It won't be the last.
I mean, my gosh, if reporters want the real story, all they have to do is read this blog.....
