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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (546)	5/5/2003 8:35:42 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793926

The Blair crash: SLATE Since we are having fun at Bennett's expense, lets have some at the "New York Times" expense. They really are getting a black eye over the firing of Blair for Plagiarism. >>>Plenty of white journalists have done what Jayson Blair, the NYT reporter who recently resigned, is alleged to have done. Does the Blair case, then, have anything to do with affirmative action? I think so.<<< >> What's the preference program in this case? The NYT apparently has run a minority internship program that has the effect--since the internships routinely lead to job offers--of hiring minority reporters right out of college, without the customary years of seasoning at smaller papers. Blair was apparently hired by the Times (after an internship) before he even graduated from college. ... I'm not saying there are no countervailing benefits to race preferences in journalism -- there are even benefits, such as ability to get stories white reporters can't get, that might not exist in other professions. I'm just saying that people should also acknowledge that there are costs, and that one of those costs is almost certainly a) more cases of African-American reporters who screw up, and b) uncertainty about whether a program of no special-preferences might have averted any particular screw-up before it turned into a credibility- and career-damaging incident. ... There's also the distinct possibility that the costs outweigh the benefits, even for the intended beneficiaries. .<<< slate.msn.com