Anti-diversity postcard campaign misses mark, says ASNE president

When Peter Bhatia took over as ASNE president, he knew he would have a lot on his plate. When the Jayson Blair episode rocked both the New York Times and then all of journalism, he knew talking about it would likely dominate much of his one-year term.

What the executive editor of The Oregonian didn't expect, however, was to be held accountable for some of the Jayson Blair mess.

That changed when he received hundreds of postcards (see bottom of page) with the following message typed on the back:

"Dear Mr. Bhatia:

"As president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), you and your organization, bear some of the responsibility for the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times. ASNE has been promoting "diversity," even quotas, so that newspapers hire a certain number of minorities to meet "parity." Blair was hired after going through a minority internship program of the kind that ASNE tries to foist on papers across the country. We suggest you read and recommend William McGowan's Coloring the News, a book written before the scandal which documents how diversity has corrupted journalism. It might save some of ASNE's member papers from the fate that has met the Times. ASNE should lead the effort to get back to the basics of journalism such as accuracy and objectivity — without regard to skin color."

Bhatia brought the postcard to the attention of editors and newspaper executives attending the API/ASNE Editors Forum on Reporting and Writing Standards seminar, which convened to address the issue of ethics in journalism and looked at ways to prevent several recent ethical lapses at a variety of newspapers from repeating.

"I believe in the First Amendment, so I believe in people's right to express their opinions on things. I happen to disagree strongly with the opinion expressed in these postcards. The work that ASNE does around diversity is important for the health of newspapers and for newspapers to have the ability to cover their communities and cover their communities well and completely.

"While I respect people's assertion that ASNE and the whole affair around Jayson Blair is somehow related to this, I reject that idea out of hand because, in fact, this is not about diversity. This is about credibility and other things. Certainly diversity is a part of credibility, but I disagree with the assertions made in the postcard in that way."

Bhatia added that while diversity was a factor in the Blair case, he doesn't believe it to be the overriding factor.

"I was afraid that people may use it as a wedge against diversity, and I guess you could see this postcard campaign as being something like that, but I don't think, ultimately, that that's what this case is about. This case is about leadership, it's about management, it's about editing, it's about a lot of things. There are some questions within it that are about diversity, but I don't believe it is about diversity in its full essence."

One of the postcards he received had a return address for Mr. Rinehart Potts. When contacted by telephone at his home in New Jersey, Mr. Potts confirmed sending the postcard, but declined further comment and requested that all correspondence be done by letter.