You Know You Have Problems When Lufkin Drops You

The Lufkin Daily News has dropped one of the premier columnists of a once-great newspaper.

The problem?

Much like the rest of the NY Times under Howell Raines, the columnist simply cannot be trusted. Here's the editorial:

The New York Times' considerable credibility problem is now our problem, as well.

But unlike the Times, which has been engaged in a torturous exercise of naval gazing and self-flagellation, with its accustomed arrogance, since it was revealed that one of its younger reporters had committed all sorts of journalistic sins, we are doing something about it, and fast.

Until she explains to our satisfaction her own ethical transgression � an apparently deliberate distortion of a comment by President Bush � you will not find the work of Times columnist Maureen Dowd on this page.

Since publishing a mea culpa on the Jayson Blair fiasco, the ethical woes have only continued at the Times. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg resigned this week after it was revealed he had passed as his own, work reported by interns and freelance writers. Not even his friendship with the Times' top editor could save him.

The storm clouds have now moved over Dowd, also a Pulitzer Prize winner whose work has appeared here and other newspapers across the country � and coincidentally, like me, a graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. A Times spokeswoman said the newspaper is "looking into" a column, which we did not publish, in which Dowd apparently twisted to fit her point of view Bush's assessment of the danger posed by al-Qaida terrorists just days before a terror attack in Saudi Arabia.

Dowd, it seems, may have taken the title of her column � "Liberties" � way too far.

Here's what Dowd wrote in the column in question:

��Al-Qaida is on the run,' President Bush said last week. 'That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated ... they're not a problem anymore.'"

Here's what Bush actually said:

"Al-Qaida is on the run. That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated. Right now, about half of all the top al-Qaida operatives are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem anymore."

New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets offered a perfect criticism of what Dowd did.

"The words in italics were replaced in Dowd's column by three little dots. Those dots say to the reader: Trust me, I'm abbreviating here, but what I'm leaving out doesn't change the meaning.

"But the dots did change the meaning," Chafets wrote. "In fact, they turned it upside down. Far from declaring al-Qaida 'spent,' Bush was warning the country against complacency. The only terrorists the president declared 'no longer a problem' were the ones already jailed or dead."

Dowd quietly "corrected" herself by including the full quote in a subsequent column that appeared in The Lufkin Daily News on Thursday.

That's not good enough, and until Dowd, and her newspaper, fully account for her infraction, her column will not appear on this page.

Critics of the Times, who are everywhere, are watching with glee as Dowd, one of the more clever columnists around, tries to write herself out of this one. Here in Lufkin, at least one reader thinks she has dragged The Lufkin Daily News into the muck with her, noting that we frequently publish her work.

"That does not say a whole lot for The Lufkin Daily News editorial page," one Sound Off caller said Thursday.

Hopefully, our decision to suspend Dowd from these pages will help restore our credibility with the caller and other readers.

Dowd violated one of the cardinal tents of the newspaper business: Don't mislead your readers, because your credibility is your only currency. Lose it, and the reader won't care how good a writer you are.

How we can best serve you, the reader, is a daily challenge here at The Lufkin Daily News, for our credibility is the only thing that those of us in the newsroom have to sell. We may not always get it right, and you may not always like what you read, but we will always do our best to make this newspaper, your newspaper, a place where the likes of Jayson Blair, Rick Bragg and Maureen Dowd will never feel at home.

Kudos to the Lufkin Daily News for having standards.

[Posted at 20:58 CST on 05/30/03] [Link]