Also this issue: Stan Pokras Communication Minister -Bruce Schimmel Keep Your Promise Why Rendell should end the death penalty. -Jerome Montes Letters to the Editor

May 29-June 4, 2003

pretzel logic

Nothing to Bragg About

by Howard Altman

It is very clear that, in the aftermath of l’affaire Blair, The New York Times has a lot of damage to control and a lot of faith to rebuild. But the paper’s decision to suspend Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg for two weeks -- because a story with his byline from last June relied heavily on an uncredited stringer -- is an overreaction, to say the least.

In a story about Florida oystermen, Bragg -- according to a NYT correction that ran on May 23 -- "visited Apalachicola briefly and wrote the article [but] the interviewing and reporting on the scene was done by a freelance journalist, J. Wes Yoder."

That Yoder got no credit was wrong, as the Times admitted in its correction.

"It would have been nice for J. Wes to share a byline, or at least a tagline, but that's not the policy," Bragg told the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), which broke the news of his suspension. "I don't make the policies."

Even though Yoder told CJR he was fine with the anonymity, the policy that allowed it is extremely flawed.

Yet, had the Times not looked so inept in its handling of the pathological liar Jayson Blair, there would probably have been no correction of Bragg's piece, let alone a suspension.

Rick Bragg's suspension hits home with me because a little more than a year ago I began stringing for the Times, assisting on Philadelphia-area stories, feeding the beast with quotes and scenes and bits and pieces of information for the princely sum of 15 bucks an hour.

I scoured Philadelphia for people who knew Lisa Lopes. I interviewed visitors to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall for stories on post-9/11 security measures. I gathered reactions from blacks to the Trent Lott debacle. I called Israel, to talk to friends of a young Jewish man blown up by a suicide bomber. I scored an interview with the mother of Erica Pratt, the little girl who was kidnapped and, marvelously, found alive.

And I spent hours and hours working my police sources and guiding a reporter around Philadelphia when Allen Iverson was accused of barging into an apartment with a gun.

Sometimes the editors used nothing. Most of the time, though, I provided interesting quotes and decent nuggets for some pretty big stories, including one of those Howell Raines zone-flooders, about the former Drexel students who rigged horse betting.

As more and more of my stuff got into the paper, I began beseeching my editors to give me a byline or a tag.

It was not just a matter of ego, though I must admit it is an honor seeing my name in the Times.

The real reason I was so vociferous is that the people who pick up a newspaper have the right to know who provides the information therein.

It is a matter of trust, to the readers and to the sources.

After a while, and especially with the Iverson mess -- involving a couple of B-movie bunglers trying to pin a bum gun rap on The Answer -- sources began to joke about my veracity when they didn't see my name in the paper. People who are quoted like to know who did the quoting, because, should anything be wrong, they want to know whom to yell at. (The good news was that I got everything right and nobody, to my knowledge, complained. The bad news is that I didn't invent any of my interviews, which, at the going rate, would have guaranteed me a very large jackpot.)

Readers have a right to know, too. Bylines and tags provide a lot of needed context, like the number of reporters a newspaper throws at a story and whether they are men or women and whatever other demographic information that can be gleaned these days from a name.

My pleadings, via telephone and e-mail, were answered with a standard this-is-the-policy line, lest something be of such import and substance that it would be impossible to ignore.

Back and forth we went.

Eventually, the Times had to give me props when I was their only asset in a gun-charge hearing that turned into Allen Iverson's Flying Circus. And even then I merely got a with-line.

Despite my frequent lobbying, which might have been construed as nudging, my Times time was great. I had tremendous fun chasing stories that, at an alternative, I would have left to the dailies.

And I worked with reporters and editors who were truly world-class in terms of both the professional and personal. Many asked for special dispensation on my behalf.

They are keenly talented people. Not unlike Rick Bragg, the subject of our story.

Since becoming City Paper editor in chief, I've had no time for the Times and the calls from New York have ceased. Yet, even if I continued, I would tell my editors this:

Reporters who contribute information that gets printed are due credit. We have enough problems with people trusting us.