WGBH Explains
Posted on July 1st, 2006 in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
Jeffrey Keating, a reporter at WGBH, wrote to clarify what happened with Professor Richard Thomas regarding the WGBH story on Larry Summers…this is reprinted with his permission.
First, I should say that Prof. Thomas posted his message before I had an opportunity
to explain to him what happened. We have since spoken and, although he is justifiably
frustrated by how we handled this, he told me he appreciated the explanation.
We had produced a taped report that was highly critical of Lawrence Summers. Most
of it was drawn from interviews with Daniel Fisher and Judith Ryan. Basic fairness
dictated that we follow that taped piece with an on set discussion that included
a Summers defender. We had initially asked Prof. Ed Glaeser to appear alone. We
later reconsidered and invited Prof. Thomas to appear as well. In a mistake on our
part, we did not communicate this to Ed until the last minute and he refused to
come on the show with Richard. A last minute attempt to find an alternative Summers
defender from within the FAS faculty was unsuccessful. Stuck in a predicament of
our own making, our fairness concerns prompted us to go forward with Glaeser alone.
Glaeser did have time issues and that prevented us from pushing back the taping
time, which would have given us more time to find a better resolution.
I regret that we did not better communicate with Prof. Glaeser and Prof. Thomas,
but our mistakes were honest and not in bad faith. Naturally, having Prof. Thomas
on the set with Prof. Glaeser would have been preferable, but I believe what we
aired was fair. It is available for viewing on our website at www.wgbh.org/greaterboston.
Sincerely,
Jeff Keating
Associate Producer
WGBH
9 Responses
7/1/2024 4:22 pm
Richard, There were some interesting details on Summers in yesterday’s copy of the Crimson. Curious to hear your thoughts.
7/1/2024 4:36 pm
Richard, It is definitely fair to reprint Keating’s self-serving letter next to Thomas’s minute-by-minute account of what occurred. For Keating to claim he made “honest” mistakes is certainly belied by (one example, obviously there are several) telling Thomas that Glaeser had “time issues” and couldn’t go on-no, in fact (at least according to Keating’s new account) Glaeser was angry that he would have to defend his position with another faculty member present and therefore wouldn’t go on. Consider the difference: Glaeser is only willing to defend Summers if he can do so without being rebutted, while Thomas refuses to have his own opinion aired unbalanced by a Summers defender. Any question who has the more principled position? Why does Gleaser feel so insecure that he does not want to be challenged?
7/1/2024 5:03 pm
To be fair to Jeff Keating it was not he, but another person at WGBH, who was in phone contact with me, who initially said Prof. Glaeser had “time issues”, but subsequently, when I said I’d be right in, that is after Prof. Glaeser had arrived, gave the real reason.
Richard Thomas
7/1/2024 9:22 pm
The defense and criticism is focused too much on this one time production. If Keating and GBH are serious about presenting a balanced and informative account, then they will try again. Why not a program at the start of the year-how is Harvard surviving without Larry Summers?
7/2/2024 12:04 pm
I certainly think that Harvard after Summers is a good story, though probably lacking the elements of conflict that journalists like so much. Nonetheless, I think it’s an important story; if FAS can work with Derek Bok to implement the change that LHS has so frequently spoken of (with the implication that the faculty refuses to change), then it puts the onus of the failure of the Summers presidency back on Summers himself.
7/3/2024 10:37 am
I’m confident FAS can work productively with Derek Bok to effect curriculum change and do the other thigns that need doing.
7/4/2024 12:19 am
Noticed the following comments on the Rose interview in the New York Observer blog:
Summers seems a business executive by temperament. He’s too tan and doesn’t miss meals. He’s bold. The strongest impression of the hour was how often he rode right over Charlie Rose when he tried to make a point, or cut in. Summers’s voice would rise and Rose would have to shut up. An executive’s way. It’s kind of amazing that Harvard wanted him, but I guess this has a lot to do with money.
Summers lacks tone. His accent is unfinished, reminds me of middle-class friends from Baltimore who never became that worldly. He has that “dt” problem—pronouncing “t’s” with an extra consonant in there. The lack of tone extends to his ideas. He has an executive’s impressive grasp of large ideas, forward-thinking ideas—to his great credit, he has no problem with the vision thing—but lacks subtlety. There was no sensitivity or elegance to his expression.
Summers is unhealed. He had worked on some smooth turns about how it was his fault too for being too aggressive, and he didn’t handle things well, but when it came down to it, he couldn’t really talk about what an abrasive personality he is. Rose seemed to me to actually dislike Summers, which is rare on his part, and kept pushing Summers to take responsibility for his lack of finesse. “You were Treasury Secretary, you should have understood the fishbowl,” he said. Or he pushed Summers about his highhandedness and, using the third-person to refer to Summers, said, “You wonder… for all his brilliance.. he may not be the world’s most—whatever the offense was.” He meant “arrogance,” a word Rose also managed to drop in. Summers didn’t cop to it.
7/4/2024 1:02 am
Interesting, but why not include the whole thing,
http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/06/reviewing-larry-summerss-performance.html,
and what followed from your posting:
“The only individual in the Harvard community he spoke of in the 50 minutes I watched was a 19-year-old student who had had the temerity to challenge Summers’s data head-on in a class. Summers admired the kid, but I thought it was narcissistic. The kid plainly reminded Summers of himself.
I also think Summers misrepresented the forum for his controversial comments about women and science in January 2005. He repeatedly called it “a seminar.” Later: “a private academic seminar.”
But per the Washington Post, it was “a speech… at a session on the progress of women in academia organized by the National Bureau of Economic Research.” According to the Boston Globe, which broke the story, the conference, on women and minorities in the science and engineering workforce, was “a private, invitation-only event, with about 50 attendees. Summers spoke during a working lunch.” Not exactly a seminar.
P.S. In the New Republic this week, Martin Peretz, sore over Summers’s departure (which he ascribes in part of course to “anti-Israel and even anti-Jewish animus”), desires to punish the university for Summers’s departure and so plays the money card. “…[M]y own impression of wealthy alumni who were once my students is that Summers made them more generous… I know of at least three gifts in the $100 million range that were very likely to materialize and now are dicey.” Note to journalists: always be vague when throwing around the $100 million figure, throw in an “at least” or two. You don’t want anyone to try to pin you down.”
7/5/2024 3:11 pm
I don’t like the way Summers pronounces his words either. But then, people in Bahhhston, especially at Hahhhvud, tawwwk funny too.