Was race the issue in the Jayson Blair case? Writing in Alternet, Farai Chideya thinks so, arguing that as long as true diversity is not tolerated in the newsroom, there will be a pull for minority reporters to be “shapeshifters” and “charming liars” spending more effort ingratiating themselves to their editors to fit in to a lily-white environment than they do at good reporting. In essence, she argues that focusing on Blair’s misdeeds is blaming the victim. While Chideya may find my dismissal of her thesis an indication of either or both my own covert racism or my ignorance of the true dynamics of the newsroom (I plead to the latter), I think she sets up a straw man — that the Blair case will be ammunition for a new assault on affirmative action principles — for which I see no evidence, and then defends against it with a tortured argument that makes little sense in light of the evidence of journalistic malfeasance among white reporters as well. Do they, not being oppressed by institutional racism, plagiarize and fabricate for different reasons than minority con men, who are because of their oppression less culpable? In fact, Chideya might just as well turn her own hypothesis on its head and argue that minority reporters, not really fitting in and under more job insecurity, would be under increased pressure to do a scrupulously honest job and keep their noses clean rather than cut any corners. But that wouldn’t explain away Blair, would it? Pulling the race card here is clumsy and nonsensical political correctness at its worst which, I suspect, will offend the bulk of upstanding hardworking capable journalists of color.

By the way, William Safire’s much-blinked Times op-ed piece, ‘Huge Black Eye’, halfheartedly castigates his rightwing friends’ schadenfreude about the ‘diversity gone wrong’ aspects of the story without actually strongly contending that Blair’s being black did not have anything to do with his downfall.

Addendum: On re-reading my post, I wondered if Chideya might equally apply her argument to Colin Powell in the Bush Administration — that he will be under extra pressure to be a shapeshifting con man to fit into his institutional culture. Ironic, given the juxtaposition with my recent post flirting with the longstanding controversy as to whether Powell is as much a lying sociopath as the rest of the Bush regime or a dupe who is being lied to and whose integrity co-opted. If Chideya thinks there’s as much institutional racism in the halls of the White House as those of the New York Times, would she be arguing for cutting Powell some slack? Here are her published references to Colin Powell, according to Google.