Airbrush - Walter Duranty wrote

Airbrush - Walter Duranty wrote one of the best introductions to the history of philosophy that I've ever read. And yet even as I read it, I was keenly aware that the man was flogging an agenda.

It was about this time that the move to strip Duranty of his Pulitzer began in earnest. It's coming to a head, as aleading academic has advised the Pulitzer Committee to revoke Duranty's Pulitzer.:

"'They should take it away for the greater honor and glory of The New York Times,' [Professor Mark von Hagen of Columbia University, a leading Soviet History expert] said. 'He really was kind of a disgrace in the history of The New York Times.'

That The Times regretted the lapses in Mr. Duranty's coverage was apparent as early as 1986, in a review of Robert Conquest's 'The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine' (Oxford University Press). In the review, Craig R. Whitney, who reported for The Times from Moscow from 1977 to 1980, wrote that Mr. Duranty 'denied the existence of the famine in his dispatches until it was almost over, despite much evidence to the contrary that was published in his own paper at the time.'"

The Times' management. while not excusing Duranty's offenses, has a different tack. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger responded:

While careful to advise the board that the newspaper would "respect" its decision on whether to rescind the award, Mr. Sulzberger asked the board to consider two things. First, he wrote, such an action might evoke the "Stalinist practice to airbrush purged figures out of official records and histories." He also wrote of his fear that "the board would be setting a precedent for revisiting its judgments over many decades."

In an interview last night, Bill Keller, the newspaper's executive editor, said he concurred with Mr. Sulzberger.

"It's absolutely true that the work Duranty did, at least as much of it as I've read, was credulous, uncritical parroting of propaganda," said Mr. Keller, who covered the Soviet Union for The Times from 1986 to 1991.

And yet, Mr. Keller added, "As someone who spent time in the Soviet Union while it still existed, the notion of airbrushing history kind of gives me the creeps."

News flash: Sulzberger and Keller are right.

To erase Duranty's Pulitzer, as some favor - to airbrush him from the record - would erase one of the great cautionary tales in the history of the media. It would remove an inconvenient tale from the story - as anathema to a real journalist as any of Duranty's abuses.

Duranty's Pulitzer should get an asterisk in the record; the tale of his Pulitzer should include, forever, the ignominy of Duranty's dishonesty. It should indict not only the long-dead Duranty and the blindness of the Pulitzer Committee that honored him and the Times that employed him, but serve as a warning to future journalists; history will not ignore your transgressions.

Just tell the whole story.

What do you think the LA Times would think about this?

(Via Instapundit)

Posted by Mitch at October 23, 2003 07:37 AM