GOODY TWO SHOES: Stern Rebuke
The Wannabe Pundit series has attracted the attention of The Wall Street Journal. This letter from the paper’s General Counsel Stuart Karle was forwarded to The Stiletto. Heather Robinson also published this post on Political Mavens.
Regarding the claim that Harvard Professor Jessica Stern never complained her quotes were fabricated in the June 15, 2007 article Robinson wrote for The New York Sun (quotes that were republished in "Best of The Web Today"), The Harvard Crimson wrote an article about the disputed quotes:
In the New York Sun story, Stern was quoted as saying that while Muslim clerics are being called on to condemn Muslim extremist violence, "Catholic priests are not stepping up to condemn those who kill abortion doctors … [and] rabbis are not condemning the violent settlers’ movement."
These comments, Stern said, were not part of her speech. "The reporter was extremely annoyed by the approach of the Institute … She wanted to be able to say something nasty about including Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the talk."
Perhaps the "20 witnesses" to the Q&A exchange between Stern and Robinson can clear up the confusion about the quotes because "suffice it to say" Robinson’s Political Mavens post raises more questions than it answers.
To begin with, even if Stern’s remarks to the Crimson amount only to disputing the significance of the statements rather than whether they were ever said, it still does not prove that the quotes were not, in fact, fabricated. Whereas Prof. Stern is a respected expert on terrorism, Robinson has been known to inflate her freelancer’s credentials (click here and here).
Moreover, even if Stern’s quotes were accurate, it still does not diminish the fact that Robinson is "particularly proud" of writing an article in which her "aroused reporters’ instincts" resulted in her becoming the focus of the story. Not because of "personal animus" towards Stern, but because of inexperience or incompetence Robinson is clearly unable to separate her political views from her "reporting" and took Stern’s quotes out of context to create a false, misleading and inaccurate account of her words and intent.
Instead of building her credentials by getting a job at the copy desk of her local Pittsburgh paper (as the daughter of the late Sanford N. Robinson, she could easily afford to get by on a journalist’s salary) and becoming knowledgeable enough about a subject to get assigned to a beat, doing award-winning work on that topic, turning that beat into a column – and then into a nationally syndicated column, Robinson instead took the oldest shortcut in the profession, and now gets published in The Wall Street Journal and on OpinionJournal.com because she has a "personal relationship" with editor James Taranto.
If this is what it takes to be a famous pundit instead of an "obscure blogger," The Stiletto much prefers obscurity. That The Stiletto writes under a nom de guerre - in the tradition of Publius, for example - is irrelevant to the validity of her criticisms. Because of the topics about which The Stiletto writes (the Armenian Genocide, in particular), she has received racist, threatening and vituperative e-mail and comments. While The Stiletto admires Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, she doesn't want to meet the same fate he did.
As for Taranto, he habitually fails to make the necessary conflict of interest disclosures when he publishes and promotes Robinson’s articles. The subject of the post "The Stiletto Gets Results (Sorta)" is that Taranto’s "Best of The Web Today" column of June 15, 2007, did include a disclosure ("Heather Robinson, author of the Sun story, was our guest at an EastWest Institute dinner last week."), which wasn’t the rule:† Best of the Web Today - Apr 19, 2007: reference to "blogress Heather Robinson" in the item, "Creative Writing"; no conflict of interest disclosure.
† "Reckless Caution" - OpinionJournal, Feb 8, 2007: reference to "Heather Robinson of PoliticalMavens.com"; no conflict of interest disclosure.
† Best of the Web Today - Jan 3, 2007: reference to "journalist Heather Robinson" in the item, "Playing Both Sides"; no conflict of interest disclosure.
† OpinionJournal.com - Nov 1, 2006: Opinion piece, "'My Country Needs Me'," authored by Heather Robinson, identified as an "independent journalist"; no conflict of interest disclosure.
† OpinionJournal.com - Feb 8, 2006: Review/opinion piece, "What's Right With 'Munich'," authored by Heather Robinson, identified as having written for The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Los Angeles Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer"; no conflict of interest disclosure.
It appears that Robinson enjoys an advantage in getting her work published or otherwise promoted in "Best of the Web Today" and OpinionJournal.com that other authors without an intimate personal relationship with Taranto do not have.
On the face of it, the relationship is a clear conflict of interest, as regards the numerous instances in which Taranto promoted Robinson's work and career - and may also violate these provisions of the Dow Jones Code of Conduct: "Our analyses represent our best independent judgments rather than our preferences, or those of our sources, advertisers or information providers" and "There are no hidden agendas in any of our journalistic undertakings."
In addition, that Mr. Karle admits knowledge of this "personal relationship" in his letter exposes his client/employer to significant liability. Thus, this raises serious questions not only about the journalistic ethics of The Wall Street Journal, but also the corporate governance of Dow Jones.
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