I'm sure nearly everybody remembers the New York Times Magazine cover story "Pro-Life Nation," about abortion in El Salvador. It was written by Jack Hitt, an old white dude and entrenched member of the elite lefty media (he routinely writes cover stories for Harper's, Mother Jones, etc.). On Sunday, the Times public editor wrote:
"A few� women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks. [...] It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.� A three-judge panel found her guilty of “aggravated homicide,� a fact the article noted. But without bothering to check the court document containing the panel’s findings and ruling, the article’s author, Jack Hitt, a freelancer, suggested that the “truth� was different.
This gives the anti-choicers a great opportunity to discredit the entire article, which makes a series of important points about the lives of women in countries where abortion is criminalized. This has long been a sticky issue for the antis, and they were none too pleased when this article came out. One of the worst things about Hitt's and the editors' failure to admit to their error is that, by forcing the public editor to expose the issue, he cites and lends credibility to anti-abortion "news" services like LifeNews.com, which have proliferated (ha) in recent years. I've watched these sites for a long time, and have seen mainstream news outlets mimic their language and pick up certain stories. Now, by crediting them with "exposing" the problems in Hitt's El Salvador story, they're now seen as journalists rather than propagandists. Needless to say, this is dangerous.
Personally I find it very easy to believe that some Salvadorean women have been imprisoned for having abortions. But as a reporter, I also know its possible that Hitt simply wasn't able to track them down or get them to speak with him about their experiences in time to meet his deadline. Combine that with Hitt's failure to get the court documents and the Times' failure to fact-check, and you've not only undone all the good that's come from reporting on this issue, you've actually made things harder for pro-choicers both in the U.S. and abroad.
This is also a perfect example of why it's bad for journalism, particularly investigative and progressive journalism, when the vast majority of the bylines belong to white men. Don't get me wrong-- sloppy reporting can be committed by a reporter of any gender. But I'm just guessing that a woman, particularly a Spanish-speaking woman, would have had an easier time gaining trust and access. She may have found additional examples of women who have been imprisoned under this law, and then the discrediting of this one case would not have left the rest of the article on such shaky ground. I have a lot of respect for Hitt as a reporter. But he even acknowledges in the article that it was hard to get Salvadorean women to open up about their extremely personal and, in this case, illegal decisions to a white guy who doesn't speak their language.
When this story came out, I remember thinking, "Why on earth would the Times send a non-Spanish-speaking man to report this story? I know there are competent and accomplished female Spanish-fluent journalists out there." The answer? His is one of the big names of lefty journalism. And major outlets don't assign 7,600-word cover stories to just anyone. Lengthy, ambitious, National-Magazine-Award-contender stories go almost exclusively to the elite handful of progressive/investigative journalists who are mostly white and male.
The controversy over Hitt's El Salvador abortion story isn't only about bad reporting and editing. It's a sadly concrete example of why it's bad for all journalists and all progressives when men dominate the media.
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Not to be too cynical, but how do we know that the testamony that "convinced" the court was correct? This is a big assumption for a group who's beliefs tell them it's ok to lie ("we are deceivers yet true", etc -- consider, e.g., their lies in anti-abortion propaganda): there could have been false testamony about her carrying this kid fully to term, etc.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Any decent reporter can be fair. But that doesn't mean all have the same background knowledge and insights -- and it doesn't mean sources will treat all equally.
As an English/French speaker who has been to El Salvador recently, I have no idea how he extracted ANY information unless he had a very, very good translator. While I would ask the police if I needed help, if I had broken a law (however unjust or immoral) there's no way I would want to speak up. Police with AK-47s guard San Salvador's equivilent of Chuckie Cheese. Seriously. Getting any information from any source is seems pretty radical to me.
Yikes, that's no good. I like Jack Hitt's writing too.
Um, I read the court document (in Spanish) and, from what I can tell, the determination of EGA was judicial, not medical (there's no autopsy report, fetal wt, measurements, path report, etc.).
I think the problem is [mostly] with the Times' public editor article, not the original one.