From the WSJ Opinion Archives
SCENE & HEARD
A Media Coup
The Times' shakeup is a victory for the little guy.
The New York Times has always wanted to help the little guys, and now it has done them the biggest favor of all--it's become their trophy.
Yesterday's announcement that Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd were resigning from their posts as executive editor and managing editor was the media equivalent of a coup. Management at the country's pre-eminent newspaper was forced, by scores of smaller journalists at less powerful outlets, to walk out of their newsroom in disgrace.
It couldn't have come at a better time: Public-interest types howling over a recent FCC decision to loosen media merger restrictions have become panicky over impending Rupert Murdoch thought-control. Nothing could be more divorced from reality. Miles from the swaggering monopolies of critics' imagination, the Jayson Blair episode revealed the soft underbelly of Big Journalism, and the nontraditional media at their most powerful and democratizing.
For the past few weeks, coverage on the major networks and many big regional newspapers has waned, but outlets like Slate, Jim Romenesko's Media News, and bloggers like Mickey Kaus have been chipping away relentlessly at all Mr. Blair's news that wasn't fit to print.
They kept up the pressure, stirring the pot for old-media columnists like the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. Times reporters fed off these sites--and contributed to them, spinning the gossip cycle. In the end, publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger had to accept Messrs. Raines's and Boyd's resignations just to get his house in order.
If the Times has been doing back flips of late to restore its editorial reputation--publishing corrections of ancient and forgotten stories, and suspending another reporter, Rick Bragg, for not crediting the work of an unpaid intern--it's these small-media gadflies who deserve much of the credit.
Just three weeks ago, after all, top management had clearly decided to circle the wagons. Mr. Sulzberger announced that if Mr. Raines tendered his resignation, he wouldn't accept it. "Let's not begin to demonize our executives," the Times itself famously quoted Mr. Sulzberger as saying.
That turned out not to be good enough for the media critics, who, in the tradition of journalism in a democratic society, were holding a powerful institution's feet to the fire. Going one better, the target was from that class of powerful institution--the media themselves--that in the old days of three TV networks seldom held each other to account.
While the Times' own 7,000-word opus setting the record straight on Mr. Blair's past journalistic lies and errors was thorough, many thought it was less than credible in treating Messrs. Raines and Boyd as bystander victims of Mr. Blair's betrayal. Besides, what other institution would be allowed to get away with investigating itself?
The media at large, however, have become naturally more self-policing, not least because readers and critics can have instant access to copy published hundreds or thousands of miles away. Mr. Blair's history of deception was dragged into the light by Macarena Hernandez, a young reporter at the San Antonio Express News, whose story Mr. Blair had plagiarized.
The Web's greatest strength is its ability to saturate any topic, providing endless reading material for monomaniacs to follow their pet issues. Late last year, Trent Lott's comments on Strom Thurmond's birthday saw much the same trajectory. Hounded by the blogs and other media for remarks perceived to be racist, Mr. Lott was forced to step down by a story that in another age he might have been able to ride out.
This process has allowed more voices into the mainstream (much to the old media's chagrin, the formerly excluded voices are often conservative). It has also given voice to publications and pundits outside the media mainstream who aren't privy to the establishment's sense of the acceptable limits of self-criticism.
Each of these new voices exists because it has found an audience. If the Jayson Blair story has a sunny side, this is it: Readers and viewers are more in control than they ever have been before. Power is shifting from big institutions to individuals of all stripes, simply because more people can find a platform and audience if they have something worth saying.
And one of the most important but least scrutinized institutions in society--the media--is finally getting feedback and accountability.
Ms. Levey is an assistant features editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.
