The New York Times was both predictable and odd in its coverage of Condi’s testimony yesterday.
Predictable was David Sanger’s front page “news analysis” article, “In Testimony to 9/11 Panel, Rice Sticks to the Script.”
At every turn in her three hours of often-contentious testimony, she stuck to the White House script: Everything that could have been done to prevent the attacks had been done. She did not acknowledge failings, apart from the institutional tensions that have long plagued the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a culture that made it impossible for a succession of administrations to see the threat unfolding in front of them.
The use (overuse, actually) of the term “script” doesn’t necessarily imply fiction or rigidity, but as used in this article it does. Moreover, by asserting that Rice “did not acknowledge failings,” Sanger editorially affirms that there were in fact failings and that only obstinate script-following can explain her refusal to own up to them. That’s not “analysis”; that’s editorializing.
Odd was Alessandra Stanley’s article, “Testimony Provides Breath of Racial Reality for TV.”
According to Ms. Stanley, Rice’s “measured performance brought a breath of reality to a television universe too often clotted with distorted images of black women, ” but for an example of distortion one need look no further than her own lede:
There was absolutely nothing in Condoleezza Rice’s neutral-toned suit, primly folded hands or calm demeanor to draw attention to her sex or race. Her answers, guarded, prosaic and a bit pedantic, were typical of any high-level Washington official.
Ms. Stanley thus is saying that Rice didn’t seem like a black woman because she was not flashy, loud, and dumb.
Quick suggestion. Don’t link directly to the NY Times, because the articles require registration, which some people aren’t willing to do. Instead, use the NY Times Link Generator (http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink) which will automatically generate a registration free link to any NY Times article.
For this article, the link is
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/politics/09ASSE.html?ex=1396843200&en=7b46f0fb75d9d2cd&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
This is slightly OT, sorry.
I’m always amused to find blatantly racist statements like the one you just pointed out.
There’s a park and a statue in downtown Memphis named after Tom Lee. He was a black man who lived on the bank of the Mississippi and had a fishing boat. When a steamboat, the ME Norman, overturned in 1925, Lee personally rescued 32 passengers. The statue was erected by the grateful survivors, and on it are the words “A very worthy Negro”. Periodically there are reports in the newspapers of people finding this inscription racist and patronizing, and wanting it eradicated. The last time this was reported, there was also an article about a black physicist who was going to be lecturing at a local college about string theory. The article detailed this man’s many outstanding accomplishments, and in the middle of all of that it had to throw in that he was the first African-American to hold a major physics chair, or whatever. I thought that was totally unnecessary, and I think the time is coming when that kind of thing is viewed as another form of “a very worthy Negro”.
Outside the context, which is how black women are typically portrayed on television, I’m not sure the quote is quite as bad as it sounds, but I was mystified by Stanley’s unstated assumption that television, and “reality” shows in particular, do serve to adequately portray males and non-blacks and are therefore doing a particular disservice to black women. Somehow I doubt that Dick Cheney and Janet Reno would be selected as contestants on Survivor, or that someone accustomed only to Judge Judy wouldn’t find foreign the tone and pacing of a congressional-style hearing. Much of television is interested not in reflecting reality, but instead lazily and soothingly confirming people’s prejudices; it’s an equal opportunity peddler of stereotypes.
Very perceptive post. Gotta mail it to the Times.