Perhaps this is just what The New York Times has needed. EVERYBODY needs to keep a watch over their integrity. You can never be too complacent. Individuals cannot, and neither can institutions. Look at Enron. You have to be vigilantly honest with yourself.
But even higher up than that, on an even more macro level: I think it is good that this happened.
I believe in a meritocratic system. What I do care about is effectiveness, competency, and being good at what you do. This is a matter of character. Stephen Glass, the disgraced reporter at the New Republic was a charlatan, a liar, a cheat, a scoundrel. There are some people who cannot help but take the short-cuts to success. It is what they are made of. Some people are praised early on for doing the minimum amount of work, or they are praised because they play the shmooze game well … and from then on, they prefer to project the FACADE of competency. But make no mistake: it is a facade. And because everyone around them buys into that facade, and applauds the facade, they begin to believe their own lies. Jayson Blair probably really believed that he was a hard-working hard-hitting reporter from The New York Times. The human mind is a fascinating thing. Self-deception can become a way of life.
The personality of Jayson Blair. The personality of Stephen Glass. (Why some people do such things … while other people would NEVER do such a thing… I believe, with all my heart, in a moral compass. And I also believe, with all my heart, that some people do not have such a compass. Ted Bundy comes to mind.) This situation is WAY bigger than Jayson Blair.
Institutions can also be run on self-deception. Not even “run on self-deception”. That’s not the right way to put it. LIES are the air that some businesses breathe. Everything is a lie. A self-congratulatory lie. During the Enron scandal, I remember seeing clips from recent company meetings at Enron, a couple of months before the spectacular collapse … and it was stunning. A room packed full of people, cheering and applauding themselves, puffed up with confidence … unaware that the wheels of disaster were already well in motion. A company that had become so used to lying, lying to itself, lying to its employees, its shareholders, the public, its accountants … Lies that grow to that magnitude no longer become lies. It’s a life-style. It’s bigger than one person. It is the air, the atmosphere. You cannot imagine a way out. You cannot IMAGINE coming clean, because it is too big. Too unweildy. There is NOTHING you can do to stop the deception … you are helpless in the face of such gargantuan dishonesty.
Jayson Blair created his own personal Enron.
And The New York Times has to come clean. The conversations I have heard over the last couple of days … batting around in the blog-world, on op-ed columns, on CNN, Fox, MSNBC … these conversations are almost exhilarating to listen to. Because you know what I feel I am in the presence of? Even with all the disagreeing viewpoints? I feel like finally TRUTH has come into the damn room.
And truth is messy. Truth sometimes don’t feel all that good, y’know what I’m saying? Truth means being able to say, “Wow. I have so screwed up here. I am so sorry.” Like: taking the fall. Taking your punches. Owning up. That’s what’s happening here for The New York Times, and I think it’s fantastic.
