ARAX DROPS A BOMB
by Kevin Roderick

LA Observed, CA
April 30 2007

Times staff writer Mark Arax just escalated – in a big way – his
dispute with the paper’s managing editor over a recent story about
the Armenian genocide. He emailed an open letter to everyone on
the news editing system laying out his side and demanding a public
apology from Managing Editor Doug Frantz. Here’s the whole thing;
links to the background are at the end:

From: Arax, Mark
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 10:48 AM
Subject: from Mark Arax

April 30, 2007

Dear Colleagues,

I am not sure about the timing of writing you. In no way do I want
my personal issue to add to the turmoil inside the Times. But as I’ve
watched our newspaper respond to my issue over the past several days,
I’ve come to conclude that it raises troubling questions that go right
to the heart of what we do and how we do it. I know of no other way
to explain the matter to you than to proceed straight with logic.

I have been accused by Doug Frantz of having an opinion on the Armenian
genocide. "Are you now or have you ever been a believer in the Armenian
Genocide?" Of the numerous accusations that Frantz has thrown my way
over the past month, this one I am happy to plead guilty to. Yes,
I have a stance on the Armenian genocide. I believe it happened. And
I am gratified to know that my newspaper believes it happened, as
well. So here is the dilemma at hand: What is our obligation when
this same newspaper, in stories from Istanbul in 2004 and 2005,
begins to contradict its policy on the genocide? What is a reporter
to do when members of the Armenian community-judges, politicians,
civic leaders–start calling and demanding to know why the newspaper
is suddenly throwing qualifiers in front of the word "genocide?"

This was the question confronting me and Greg Krikorian and Ralph
Vartabedian and Robin Abcarian in the fall of 2005. So we did what
our Jewish and African American and Latino and Asian colleagues have
done countless times when faced with an ethnic community angry over
our coverage. We went to our editors. We reminded them in a letter
that the newspaper had an official policy on the genocide-that it
happened, that there was no need to equivocate or treat it like a "he
said-she said" dodge. We pointed out chapter and verse in the Times
style book. "The Armenian genocide is a historical fact and we should
use the word ‘genocide’ without qualification in referring to it." To
act as our newspaper’s eyes and ears and help correct the error was
our duty. To stay silent would have been a dereliction of that duty
and only served to damage our newspaper’s public standing even more.

Thus, the proper question confronting Doug Frantz as he read my story
three weeks ago on the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress
is not whether I believed in the Armenian genocide or signed that
letter in September 2005. The proper question-the only question
that mattered–was whether I had allowed my beliefs to bleed into my
story in a way that made it tendentious. This is the same question
that every editor must ask of every story because all reporters,
all human beings, have opinions. And yet it does not matter, really,
what Henry Weinstein believes in his gut about capital punishment. It
does not matter what Megan Stack utters over dinner about the war in
Iraq. It does not matter what Robert Lopez writes in a memo to his
editor about our coverage of border issues. The only question that
needs to be answered is if their biases are on display in a story. This
is what we have spent years training as journalists to put aside-our
own quarrels, our own narratives, our own wounds. This is how I, the
son of a murder victim who had spent more than half his life searching
for the killers, was able to go inside the California prison system
and uncover official abuses against murderers and rapists.

Let me now briefly explain what happened to my genocide resolution
story as it made its way through the editing process in early April.

Bob Ourlian had first crack at it. He removed a few paragraphs here
and there for space. He removed a handful of words that he considered
imprecise or too loaded. Then he put the story on the budget-"it’s
a great read"-and began to sell it for Page 1. As the story moved
up the chain of command, no editor called Ourlian or me to alert us
to any bias or need for more reporting. Not Joan Springhetti or Tom
Furlong or Scott Kraft or Craig Turner. And here is the crux of the
matter. Not even Doug Frantz, in his e-mail to me explaining why
he was putting the story on hold, said one word about bias or any
problems with the story itself. No holes, no contextual problems.

Instead, Frantz told me he was holding the story-a hold that later
became a kill-because of two other issues: One, because of the 2005
letter to our editors (Frantz called it a "petition") I had taken a
public stance on the issue and had a "conflict of interest." Two, Bob
Ourlian and I, as a pair of Armenians, had gone around the established
system to plant a story about the Armenian genocide resolution. So
rather than judge my story on its merits, Frantz suddenly chose to
take a gratuitous leap and look into my heart as a writer and the
ethnic heritage I was born with. This is dangerous stuff. For one,
it raises questions that are impossible to answer.

And it has grave implications for all of us, for every journalist in
every newsroom. In other words, it is not good enough for the story
itself to be fair, objective, well reported and well written. Even
when a story passes all those tests, it could still be censored by
some tortured inference that the reporter holds an opinion, even
though that opinion never shows up in the story.

So my story never ran. A completely different story by Rich Simon
replaced it. To justify this, the top editors have now manufactured
all sorts of after-the-fact reasons in explaining why my story needed a
"new angle." And what became of Frantz’s two stated reasons for killing
my piece? Jim O’Shea told me the HR investigation has concluded that
Bob Ourlian and I had followed the proper procedure in compiling and
editing the story. And the letter the six of us signed in 2005 did
not address a genocide resolution in Congress but rather the fact of
the genocide itself. Thus, it was not a form of advocacy, he said. In
other words, Frantz’s two reasons for killing the story have no merit.

I hope you don’t think it selfish of me, but I believe I deserve a
public apology from Frantz. And I believe that the five colleagues who
signed the letter with me-Krikorian, Vartabedian, Abcarian, Weinstein
and Chuck Philips–deserve to hear from our editors that our letter
was the right thing to do. Are we to stop our conversation inside
the paper about issues of fairness and accuracy in fear that raising
those issues might someday disqualify us from ever writing about a
subject again? If we can no longer trust that we will be judged on
the merits of our work-the words carried on the page–then the very
foundation of our vocation is destroyed.

What the six of us did wasn’t a public display. We didn’t grab a
bullhorn in one hand and a petition in the other and take to the
corner of First and Spring. What we did we did inside the paper as
loyal employees who care deeply about the Times. In no way should the
carrying out of this duty preclude us from writing about the Armenian
genocide now or in the future.

Thank you for your ear.

Respectfully,

Mark Arax

Ourlian is an editor in the Washington bureau. Word going around
Times staffers at this weekend’s Festival of Books was that editor
Jim O’Shea ordered Frantz to make a public apology and that it wasn’t
going down too well with Frantz No confirmation on that from O’Shea
(who I had two pleasant conversations with this weekend) or Frantz.

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