Digression II: Don’t Take My Word For It

After I posted my last entry, I realized how inarticulate I can be sometimes. I think I’ve done a fine job conveying my anger and disappointment over the plagiarism incidents, but I think I’ve failed to convey WHY I am so angry and disappointed about it. I have failed to convey just how serious this is. So, I thought I’d let a much better writer do it for me.

The following was originally published on August 24, 2003 by Tony Marcano, the ombudsman for the Sacramento Bee. It refers specifically to the first incident I wrote about, but it applies to all of them:

Zero tolerance at The Bee for ethics transgressions

Back in May, the scandal involving Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter whose prolonged fit of prevarication and chicanery threw the paper into turmoil, was deemed by many to be a wake-up call for the newspaper industry. But did a couple of reporters here at The Bee decide to stay in bed?

Last week, The Bee fired a sportswriter, Jim Van Vliet, after an internal investigation determined that he had not attended a San Francisco Giants game, but wrote an article about it anyway for the Aug. 7 edition after watching the game on television.

Furthermore, according to Bee editors, Van Vliet added quotes to his article that had been given to other reporters days earlier.

On the same day, The Bee suspended another sportswriter for lifting information verbatim from a press release. I’m withholding the writer’s name because the article in question was never published and the case remains under investigation.

The same critics who clucked and pundits who posited about the New York Times scandal might be inclined to label this incident as another example of laxness and duplicity in the newspaper industry. But the backstory here reveals that the wake-up call delivered in the wake of the Times scandal has been heeded, and not just at The Bee.

According to Bee Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez, other reporters in the press box at Pacific Bell Park complained to a Bee sportswriter that Van Vliet didn’t attend the Aug. 6 Giants game. The sportswriter then spoke with a Bee columnist who was at the game. The columnist brought the matter to editors, according to Rodriguez.

That sparked an investigation that included phone calls to other reporters, to the Giants organization and a sports agent who was with Van Vliet on the evening of the game. None of them, Rodriguez said, could substantiate Van Vliet’s version of events.

Similarly, the week-long suspension of another Bee sportswriter was the result of proper internal controls. An editor noticed that much of a short article was worded verbatim from a press release, and the article was killed.

Some readers may ask, What’s the big deal? The game story that Van Vliet wrote was accurate — he got the score right, he highlighted the turning points of the game, and he quoted some players. What difference does it make if he watched the game on TV? And what’s wrong with using old quotes? The players really said them, didn’t they? And why suspend a sportswriter for copying directly from a press release? Don’t all reporters do that? All reporters at one time or another have relied on press releases, but printing those releases verbatim is a tacit acceptance of its information. That’s stenography, not journalism.

Van Vliet’s trangressions were more subtle, but no less important. It wasn’t a matter of accuracy, but credibility. Readers have to be able to trust every word that’s in an article, dateline included. It’s akin to a cop taking a free cup of coffee — no big deal in the greater scheme of things, but it lends excuses to those who are seriously on the take and damages the credibility of the great majority who aren’t.

Van Vliet, who had worked at The Bee for 34 years, concedes that his missteps warranted discipline, but not dismissal. In a phone conversation on Thursday, he said he was “shocked and dismayed” that he was fired. He admitted he wasn’t at the game, but he did not see that as a fatal offense.

That’s a judgment call for the paper’s executives. At some newspapers, such an offense might have led to a suspension or a transfer to a different job. But as the newspaper industry seeks to regain credibility and reinforce ethics in the wake of the New York Times scandals, ethical violations are likely to bring harsher punishments.

Does that mean that Van Vliet was unfairly sacrificed at the altar of introspection and shifting standards? Considering that The Bee has fired other writers in the past for similar violations, that seems unlikely. But even if you accept Van Vliet’s contention that The Bee overreacted, that doesn’t justify his failure to recognize that zero tolerance for ethics transgressions is a harsh but necessary reality, particularly in the post-Blair era.

His case aside, all journalists nowadays should realize that standards in this industry have never been static, and that there have always been protestations that it’s unfair to hold someone accountable today for what was acceptable yesterday.

I’ve heard that sentiment from the start of my career, at the Daily News in New York. In those days, there were bottles of Scotch in reporters’ desk drawers, if not actually out on the desk. The place had all of the sophistication of a high-school locker room. What would have been considered bawdy banter in those days would get a newsroom employee fired today.

Eventually, standards got tougher. The bottles of Scotch disappeared. Most people adapted, but some decried the changes as the death knell of the spirit and camaraderie that kept newspapers lively. Some just couldn’t let go, and they were left out in the cold.

Whatever your opinion of the outcome of the Van Vliet case, it illustrates that the only effective way to deal with these sorts of situations is to make sure they never come up in the first place. For all journalists, that means rigorous self-discipline.