ZGram - 7/27/2002 - "More on the Russian Famine" _ Part III

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

July 27, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

The first two Parts of this three-part ZGram on the Russian famine 
of 1932-33 dealt with the actual famine.  This last part deals with 
how it was shamefully reported in America by a Jewish/Communist 
journalist, Walter Durante, who wrote for the New York Times, as 
reviewed more than six decades later by the Columbia Journalism 
Review, January/February 1999

[START]

OOPS!
Bloopers of the Century
Blunders, hoaxes, goofs, flubs, boo-boos, screw-ups, fakes


by John Leo
Leo is a syndicated columnist and a contributing editor of U.S. News 
& World Report.

Garbled accident reports are hardly the worst reportorial sins.  The 
worst always involve getting it wrong on purpose.  The name of Walter 
Duranty comes up quickly.  Duranty covered the Soviet Union for The 
New York Times in the Stalin era.  He is perhaps the only Pulitzer 
winner that The Paper of Record would fervently like to forget.

At first a critic of the Soviet Union, Duranty soon evolved into an 
enthusiastic supporter and state-of-the-art propagandist.  One of his 
favorite comments was, "I put my money on Stalin."  When friends 
asked about Stalin's tactics, Duranty liked to say "You can't make an 
omelet without breaking eggs."  Not that he noticed many broken eggs 
in Russia.  When Stalin engineered massive famine in the Ukraine to 
help break resistance to Soviet control, Duranty told Times readers 
that "any report of a famine in Russia today is an exaggeration or 
malignant propaganda."  In 1933, at the height of the famine, he 
wrote of abundant grain, plump babies, fat calves, and "village 
markets flowing with eggs, fruit, poultry, vegetables, milk, and 
butter at prices far lower than in Moscow."  He added that "a child 
can see this is not famine but abundance."

In fact, the death toll was enormous and Duranty knew it.  He told 
colleagues privately it was in the range of 10 million.  British 
journalist Malcolm Muggeridge said Duranty was "the biggest liar of 
any journalist I ever met."  But the Pulitzer committee praised 
Duranty's reports for their "scholarship, profundity, impartiality, 
sound judgment, and clarity."  Four errors, arguably five, in a 
single phrase.

Eventually, Duranty's Soviet coverage provoked debate among his 
editors and readers.  To its credit, the Times editorial page 
challenged his accounts.  But in the genteel journalistic world of 
that era, his reporting was never odious enough to get him recalled 
or fired.  The embarrassing Pulitzer has never been withdrawn or 
returned.

In these scandals, editors had plenty of time to reassess or spike 
bad stories.  That's a luxury the profession will have less of in the 
twenty-first century.  In an age of high-speed journalism, the risks 
are greater and the decisions had better be sharper.

[END]