Where I Stand — Columnist Brian Greenspun: More than a ‘Dream’

Friday, June 4, 2004 | 4:43 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 5 - 6, 2004

Is it an absence of malice or an absence of sense?

The New York Times has long been the newspaper of record in the United States, the epitome of great journalism and the bastion of reportorial freedom and ethics. It has been, to be clear, the kind of newspaper that I thought I wanted the Sun to be as Las Vegas grew up. I still think that is the case. Maybe.

Every newspaper editor fears most the kind of attack that has occurred in The New York Times newsroom over the past year or so. Overzealous reporters, eager to win their own Pulitzer Prize without actually doing the work -- you can interpret that to mean making up the really good stories -- coupled with editors either too lazy, too busy or too consumed in their own career paths to protect that valued credibility of the paper for which they work, provided the fertile ground for a heretofore unthinkable loss of credibility and conscience at the nation's finest.

Worse yet, the Times, by turning a blind eye to the administration's reasons for war in Iraq when a country and a news industry needed the kind of leadership usually reserved for newspapers like it, has blackened a reputation built solidly for generations.

Whether it was blinding patriotism or a fear of economic or other reprisal that had never cowed the Times in its long and distinguished history, the fact remains that the national newspaper of record did not do its job. The result has been a series of mea culpas and high-level resignations at the Times, together with a promise to do better and be more vigilant.

After all, if the newspapers in this country that owe their survival to their readers' belief in their accuracy are relegated to Internet-type news reporting -- you can read that to mean sensational and sensationally wrong -- then it won't be long before people in this country will have nowhere to turn for credible information. And that is the road toward where a democracy, based upon fiction and that kind of government, will not stand.

So, with all the house-cleaning and soul-searching one should require from an institution like The New York Times, it should be expected that sloppy journalism and sensationalism for the sake of sensation would be kept to a minimum, at least for a responsible period of time following the page-killing apologies offered up to the paper's many readers.

I guess that is why we are told since childhood to always expect the unexpected because that is exactly what happened this past week on the front page of the Times. It was hard to miss the six-part "American Dreamers" series, which started on last Sunday's front page and continued through Friday.

To say the least, it was unexpected. Not because we don't like stories published about our All-American city and not because we don't like critical looks at the kind of city we have become, although positive stories are always preferred to the other kind. Rather, we were surprised because the one-sided, typical hatchet job was more akin to the kind of stories Las Vegans had come to expect from papers such as The Wall Street Journal, never from The New York Times. From them we always knew there would be fairness and balance, to paraphrase a cable news channel that is neither.

It is apparent to me that The New York Times is still in the process of re-educating its people about good journalism. What else would explain the front page story focused on the underbelly of Las Vegas that could have been written about any city in America? One block from The New York Times offices, there is more despair per square foot than exists in any Budget Suites in Las Vegas. And the story about a Las Vegas family's trouble is, unfortunately, a story that can be repeated hundreds of times in thousands of cities across the country. And the stripper? Just proves the adage that sex sells. It even sells The New York Times.

There was one good story that seemed to fit the "American Dreamer" theme. That was about a Mexican illegal immigrant who worked her way into legal status and well up the ladder of economic success because she moved to Las Vegas to pursue her dream for a better life for her family. She is achieving what most people want through hard work and determination. It is the American Dream.

That story did not make the front page with the stripper, the unfortunate family and the desperation that grips too many Americans. The good that Las Vegas has been able to do for people who want to make more of their lives was buried way back in the front section. Obviously, good news doesn't sell. In the end, whether or not The New York Times, or any newspaper for that matter, does its worst to Las Vegas and its image, whatever that is at the moment, the fact remains that some 5,000 people each and every month are moving here to chase their own dreams. It should not come as any surprise that those same people are moving away from another place. A place, perhaps, that did not offer the same kind of opportunity. A place, perhaps, that promised nothing and took too much. A place, perhaps, where despair trumped any hope for a better life. A place, more than likely, that will never see the front page of The New York Times.

There was a classic movie called "The Absence of Malice" in which a newspaper got its facts right but the story completely wrong. That resulted in a good man's life being ruined, with no attempt to correct or apologize on the paper's part. If we want to be charitable, we can choose to believe that the editors at the Times believe that because the facts may be correct in these isolated cases, that the story is also true. In that case, there would be no malice, just more stupidity that needs another mea culpa sometime down the road.

I believe something else. I think people are jealous. Warts and all, Las Vegas continues to be the kind of place more and more Americans want to call home. Whatever we are doing here has appeal. Call it sex appeal, call it the appeal of opportunity for a new life, a better life. Whatever it is, we have it and so many other places don't. And that is the perfect recipe for the jealous among us to lash out, even without knowing why they do.

The other reason is much more simple. The lure of Las Vegas appeals to people more than any other city in the world. Whatever is written will be read. Whatever is shown will be watched and whatever is said will be heard. That is the nature of this town. We have to get used to it and the others, including The New York Times, have to accept it. That is the burden of an All-American city.

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