September 2, 2002
Buffalo NewsWatch: the war against James Pitts heats up
Buffalo NewsWatch: the war against James Pitts heats up
"...among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the love of truth,
by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."
Dr. Samuel Johnson, "The Idler," 11 November 1778
"The first casualty of war is truth."
Generally credited to U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson in a 1917 anti-war speech
What do you know when you think you know something the paper told you?
Pictures in a newspaper are neutral; they just show what something or somebody looks like, right?
And editorials are just the place where the owners of the paper mouth off; they have nothing to do with facts or content, right?
No, not right.
Pictures are not neutral; they're strategic devices deployed to portray someone in a certain way.
And editorials can be powerful purveyors of error because few people notice when editorials are laced with hypotheses posing as facts. We tend to trust the editorial column more than we trust the news articles because news articles are written on the run and in the moment, while editorials are written at leisure and only after reflection.
Which may make the editorial column a better place for them to try to control your mind than any other place in the newspaper.
A picture trumps a thousand words
The Sunday "Viewpoints" section in this week's Buffalo News contained two full pages of letters from readers, mostly agreeing with the News's editorial line on downsizing the Common Council by abolishing the four at-large seats.
Once again the News printed a photograph of an apparently angry James Pitts juxtaposed to a benign white politician. Last time the white politician was Joel Giambra (click here for the Buffalo Report coverage of that endeavor) ; this time it's Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello.
Pitts is depicted in full profile, his lips pursed as if he's spitting. His right hand is raised, blurred, the index finger
seeming to point directly at the throat of Masiello in the photograph to his right. Pitts looks angry. His hand raised with the index finger pointing suggests a rattler or cobra about to strike.
Masiello's mouth is open and his hands are open in front of him, slightly cupped, as if he's blessing the congregation or is about to take possession of a large beachball. The lower part of the photograph is filled by seven radio and tv station microphones. He speaks to the world.
Whoever does this photo selection work for the Buffalo News is brilliant at it. Unless you're a photographer or do a lot of content analysis in your ordinary work, you'd probably never notice the biased loading of the images, nor would you notice that they do it again and again. But over time, you get a sense of what they want you to think simply because they've shown it to you so frequently.
Explicit war
In case you miss the message of the photos, the News is also going after Pitts explicitly, both in the news columns and in more in its editorials, where it doesn't have to justify its assertions. Here, for example, is the full text of the lead editorial in the paper's August 30 edition:Serious businessBuffalo Common Council
Blackmailing the city
Common Council President James Pitts is so indignant over a redistricting plan that would eliminate his position that he says he won't do his job anymore. Nothing like making the case for your own ouster.
The declaration occurred in the days after the Council voted to reduce its size to nine members by eliminating its four at-large positions, including the president's. Responding to that decision, the second-most powerful man in city government decided the best way to serve the citizens he was elected to represent was to make matters worse. The leader said he would not lead.
Roads need to be improved? Too bad. Budget need adjusting? Sorry, no can do. "I hope Rose LoTempio can pull together the votes, because I don't plan to do it," Pitts vowed. Nor was this the first instance of his anger and imperious attitude.
In just the past week, Pitts has commented on the Council's poisonous political climate without any acknowledgment of his specific responsibility to address it. "I don't see any issue of major importance getting done with the kind of division we have on the Council," he observed.
He may be right, but where was the follow-up? What happened to the part where the leader says, "Nevertheless, we were elected to do a job and we will have to rise above our own selfish concerns to see that important matters are not left hanging."
It was the perfect opportunity for Pitts to demonstrate to city residents that he deserves their support; that he understands that strong leaders are supposed to influence events, not simply be constrained by them. Instead, Pitts has testified against himself, giving persuasive evidence that he is not up to the job. And the jury he gave it to is the one that will eventually determine the fate of the downsizing plan: Buffalo's voters.
Fortunately, not everyone on the Council feels the way Pitts does. Even some opponents of the reduction plan believe they can continue to function. Masten Council Member Antoine Thompson acknowledged the price of bad blood, but said, "Some things that are good for the city will go through. People expect us to move the city forward and not make decisions based on emotions."
Similarly, Charley Fisher, an at-large member who will lose his seat if the plan succeeds, acknowledged that difficult times lie ahead for the Council, but insisted that, "We can't just stop doing business. We all love this city, and we won't let it die on the vine."
Yet that is what Pitts has threatened, through both his words and his silence. Either he is actually willing to disrupt the city's business, including the economically important effort to put a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store in Memorial Auditorium, or he is blackmailing the backers of the reduction plan with the threat of gridlock in hopes of forcing them to backtrack.
Neither possibility is any more admirable than the other, and both demonstrate why the Council needs to be changed.
Those are serious charges. An elected official who won't or can't do his job shouldn't have that job. An elected official who uses the power of his position to harm the city should go to jail. An elected official who sets about sabotaging the Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store in Memorial Auditorium should be exiled to Fort Erie.
But did James Pitts ever say what the Buffalo News editorial said he said, and did he really do or plan to do any of the things they accuse him of doing and planning? The editorial is vague about actual text, evasive about specifics. The key parts are in paraphrase and prediction rather than direct quotation or description.
Pitts himself is quoted only twice. One of those quotations—"I don't see any issue of major importance getting done with the kind of division we have on the Council."—could have been said by anybody talking about any organization as seriously divided as the Buffalo Common Council is right now. It's an observation, not a call for action or plan for inaction. Those people are pissed off at one another. Seven white council members just overpowered six non-white council members on a vote to radically alter the city charter and the result costs the black folks far more than it costs the white folks. The whitefolks say their intentions are good; the blackfolks say that once again they're paying for what the whitefolks say are good intentions. Obviously, that does not create a situation in which compromise comes easily. That simple observation surely couldn't be the source of all the accusations and implications in the editorial, let alone the animus.
The other quotation is puzzling because it lacks context: "'I hope Rose LoTempio can pull together the votes, because I don't plan to do it,' Pitts vowed." Why did they print the comments of Charley Fisher and Antoine Thompson as if Fisher and Thompson were taking positions in opposition to Pitts on this, when they were instead simply explaining something to a reporter who didn't understand what Pitts had said?
Reality check
If you have questions, ask. So a little before noon on Friday, August 30, I sent this email to Buffalo News editor Margaret Sullivan and editorial page editor Jerry Goldberg:Goldberg responded 30 minutes later:The first sentence in the lead editorial in this morning's News is "Common Council President James Pitts is so indignant over a redistricting plan that would eliminate his position that he says he won't do his job anymore."
I've been trying to find where and when he said that but I've been unsuccessful. Would one of you please tell me the source for that lead—when Pitts said it and a quotation, if you have it?
Our statement that Jim Pitts said he wouldn't do his job anymore was based on his words and actions. I can give you two examples off the top of my head:The News had published the sentence Goldberg quotes in his letter to me and the other Pitts quotation in the editorial two days earlier in "Amid a downsizing battle, some expect council gridlock," by Brian Meyer:1) "I hope Rose LoTempio can put together the votes (for legislation affecting city projects), because I don't plan to do it."
2) In researching the editorial, we were told by very credible sources in City Hall that Pitts said he would not act on budget transfers, a routine part of his job that keeps the city running.
Both of these things are part of the Council President's job, and to say he won't do them means, by definition, that he won't do his job.
Jerry Goldberg
Goldberg's parenthetical comment—"(for legislation affecting city projects)"—isn't in the original version. I assume it's just something Goldberg inserted in his letter to me so I'd know how he was interpreting the sentence. The other key difference between the original appearance of those lines in the news section and their reappearance in the editorial section is "Pitts said" somehow morphed into "he vowed." Why did the author of the News editorial write "he vowed" rather than"he said"? The two words have hugely different connotations. "He said" is almost transparent; it bestows no particular characteristics on the words to which it refers. But "he vowed" is active and purposeful. The words of a vow don't just exist; they're up to something. What changed about Jim Pitts's utterance on its journey from the newsroom to the editorial office? Did they learn he'd been kneeling with his palms together when he said it?"I don't see any issue of major importance getting done with the kind of division we have on the Council," said Council President James W. Pitts.
"I hope Rose LoTempio can pull together the votes, because I don't plan to do it," Pitts said a few days after the Council approved the downsizing plan.
Goldberg's statement that this is all founded in reports from "very credible sources in City Hall that Pitts would not act on budget transfers" is, without names attached, difficult to take seriously. Who might those sources be? Someone in the Mayor's office? Hardly a reliable source for the inner workings of James Pitts's mind. Someone in the group of seven white council members who just voted to abolish Pitts's job? Hardly likely, given the minimal conversation those people seem to be having with one another these days. Someone from the minority in that vote? Do you think that one of the African American members of the Common Council told the Buffalo News editorial board that James Pitts intends to sabotage the city? Neither do I. No editor worth his guild card would let any reporter get away with that kind of nonsubstantiation.
What leap over the valley of journalistic integrity would permit the editorial board of the Buffalo News to go from that to the string of unqualified assertions in the editorial? That's not editorializing; it's smearing.
Other people's minds
My two favorite texts on how much you can know about what other people are thinking are A.J. Austin's 1946 Aristotelian Society paper, "Other Minds," and Leadbelly's"You Don't Know My Mind." Both say pretty much the same thing: nobody ever truly gets inside somebody else's head.
And neither does anybody knows for sure what anybody is going to do. You may think you know what somebody else is going to do. You may think you know what you're going to do. You don't. We only know for sure what someone was going to do after that person has done it, when it's in the past. Before that, it's just speculation with varying degrees of possibility or probability.
We base our hypotheses about what people are going to do on what they've done in the past, what they say they intend to do, and our assumptions about how good they are at keeping their word. You know all that.
We base our statements on what people are going to do in the future on what we want other people to think about the person whose behavior we're predicting. Predictions like that are virtually unassailable. You can sometimes defend yourself against false accusations about things somebody says you did in the past, but how can you defend yourself against false accusations about things you haven't had a chance to do yet?
You can't. You're convicted before you enter the courtroom. When somebody says, "I'm certain that you're going to do X so I might as well start treating you right now as somebody who has done X," there's nothing you can down except howl.
The horse's mouth
Given all that, I thought it might be useful to do something the Buffalo News has not bothered to do: ask James Pitts (a) if he really said those things, and (b) what he meant when he said the things he did say.
I suppose the writers of the editorials attacking Pitts in the Buffalo News would say, "After all we've told you, how can you trust him?" To which I'd reply, "Everything you've told me seems to be based on something you said he said. How come you can trust him for that, but not this?" So here's what James Pitts said when I asked him about all this weird stuff:Does any of this matter?Jerry Goldberg is probably one of the most unfair individuals I've ever seen. When he says "credible sources" I wouldn't know who that was. I've never made a statement that I would not act on budget transfers or anything like that. I never made that statement to anyone.
The other thing is that the first part where it purportedly quotes me as saying "I hope that Rose LoTempio can put together the votes"— what I was saying to Brian Meyer at the time was in response to the mayor signing the local law. I said to Brian, "Brian, one of the considerations that the mayor should have thought of before he signed this is that we're going to have a deeply divided council."
What that simply means is, when it comes to trying to get some of his major initiatives done, a deeply divided council is not going to be there in most cases, or in many cases, to put those initiatives forward. And then I said, "Not that this administration has any definite direction anyway."
I said that when it came to many of the problems or resolving many of the conflicts the person who did that was the council president—me. And I said, "Now that I have been attacked and you have the council divided seven-six, the council president is not going to be able to mediate those problems."
That was it. It was really confirming the need for a council president. I never said I wasn't going to do my job.
The problem I have with all of them is that when they call me their minds are already made up. They're not listening to me. I've talked to them numerous times to give my side of the story and they always quote sources from somewhere else. They never name those sources but they have no problem in naming me.
I don't mind talking to people. But when you have this game that they're playing at the News, it's like "Get Pitts every chance you get." It's almost like this man Goldberg is obsessed. He's like Carl Paladino.
I met with Goldberg after I got reelected. I went over to the editorial board and I said, "It looks like you guys are getting ready to do a job on me. It looks like every time I say something or do something you guys attack me." I said, "What's up?"
"Well, you got a divisive personality." This is what Goldberg said to me.
I said, "What do you mean by that? Three Faces of Eve? You're a psychiatrist or something?"
"Well, you got a divisive personality."
"No more divisive than anybody else." I said
Two days before the primary back in 1999, in a Sunday paper, the highest readership, right on the editorial page, they put almost a quarter-page opinion by Carl Paladino just bashing me to death.
Artvoice had done the same thing. It was almost the same article. I called Jamie Moses [owner of Artvoice] and I said, "What's this? Why did you do this?"
"Well, you know..."
I said, "Can I get equal time?"
He said, "Well, yeah, you can get equal time."
I said, "Can I put pictures in?"
He said, "Oh no, no, no. You can't put any pictures in."
I said, "Why not? It's equal time. Can't it be my equal time?"
He said, "All it can be is words."
I said, "Look, you treat me unfairly. I've never done anything to do you all. In fact, I was a strong supporter of Artvoice. Why would you put this full page thing in there where Carl Paladino rants and raves about who I am: 'he's anti-city, he's all union, he's controlled by the PBA. He's just no good for the city and blah blah blah.' There's no factualness there. All I want to do is tell people my record and I want to put some pictures of Mr. Paladino's properties in there.
"Oh, no! No, no! We can't do that."
So I hung the phone up on him.
With Goldberg in that meeting , I basically said to him, "Do you honestly think that it was fair for you to do that to me just two days before the primary?"
All I can tell you is, I think it's real sad. I think it's real sad. The article yesterday was totally ridiculous. It gave the impression that I was threatening gridlock and all this stuff.
I call what he writes "drive-by editorials."
I think it's too bad for the city. It also shows to what extent you have a few people in this town who want to control everything. They have monopolies. I think ultimately, if this plan goes through, they're going to totally control what happens or what doesn't happen in this city.
I have not been an obstructionist. I've raised questions. You know how I am. My record is clear. Most people don't even know what I've done. They think it's "Oh, he's a cry-baby. Oh, you're so childish. Are you a man?" These are the things that people email me about. "Stop crying."
I think it's a shame. I think it's a damned shame.
At a dinner the night before Labor Day a physician went on for a long time about how Jim Pitts was standing in the way of the Bass store and how he has vowed to block any action in the Common Council. Pitts, the physician said, is so angry about the vote by the white members of the Council to eliminate his job that he is right now assiduously doing all kinds of legislative sabotage.
I asked the physician how he came by this information and what information, exactly, it was he'd come by.
"Everybody knows this," he said.
"But how do you know it?" I asked.
"It's been in the paper," he said, stressing the word paper as if that carried the ultimate imprimatur of truth. He and I might disagree about facts, people might have different opinions, but, as far as he was concerned, if the paper said it, it was true.
"Saying those things hurt him bigtime," the physician said. "The fact that he didn't retract it means he's guilty."
"He doesn't have a newspaper."
"He could write a letter to the editor."
"Seventy-five words that appear a week or two later? The damage has already been done. You can't ever take anything back."
"That's what I said," the physician said. "That hurt him bigtime. He shouldn't have said that."
"He says he didn't say it."
"Then why would the News print it?"
Good question.
Were they drafted or did they enlist?
The Buffalo News has insisted that it backs David Franczyk's plan to restructure city government by abolishing all at-large seats in the Common Council simply because Franczyk says his plan would save $300,000 more than the plan developed by the eleven-person commission appointed by Mayor Masiello, James Pitts and the Common Council.Their only concern, the News has said, is economy in hard times.
That's what they say, but that's not the story the paper itself tells. The consistent slant of news stories, opinion columns, editorials and even images casting and portraying James Pitts in the worst possible light, the peppering of news stories with ostensibly objective anti-Pitts remarks by Carl Paladino without ever mentioning that Paladino has spent thousands of dollars over several years trying to unseat Pitts, makes it is difficult to believe they have any real purpose here other than getting rid of James Pitts.
If any public official is charged with keeping the city together at times of crisis, it's the mayor, not the council president. Yet the News has never trashed Tony Masiello for sitting in his office sulking while the city was falling apart around him. Masiello, very credible sources in City Hall tell me, refused to try to make peace because he mistakenly thought Pitts was involved in former mayor Jimmy Griffin's recall petition campaign. How come that dysfunctional befuddlement didn't evoke even passing comment from the Buffalo News editorial writers or columnists/ How come on the same day they printed that snaky photograph of Jim Pitts they ran a two-big-photo page-one story about Tony Masiello making nice-nice with his wife in their well-appointed kitchen?
A newspaper, just like a person, must be judged on the basis of what it does, not what it says it's doing. What the Buffalo News is doing is clear: it's trying to convince you that James Pitts is an enemy of the people. The question that must be answered now is, Why are they doing it? Why have they chosen to join the Buffalo Partnership's Andrew Rudnick and developer Carl Paladino's war on the city's most powerful African-American political figure? If publishing the truth isn't their real job, what is?
other articles in this series are:
Buffalo NewsWatch: Sins of Omission (BR August 26, 2002)
Buffalo in Black and White (CounterPunch, 10 Aug 2002)
Truth to Order on p. 1 (BR 1 August 2002)
Go to Buffalo Report web site
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