I was practically raised by my teachers; my aunt was a nyc ps teacher for decades and was dragged down the stairs once; I never mentioned teachers; unfortunately an editor did in the headline. I suppose a bad editor's call is like that of a principal? In any case, your letter is incredible, and I would encourage you to forward it to our editorial page for publication, even though it insults me! They require your phone number so they can verify that you are you.
Thank you for your thoughts,
Joanna Molloy
I replied with this:
With all due respect, I must take exception to your assertion that you "never mentioned teachers" in your column. Allow me to quote from it:
"Test scores show our kids are getting smarter.
That's a good thing, because our educators seem to be getting dumber."
And
"I don't know what the qualifications are for landing a job as a teacher or principal, but one thing's for sure, it's not common sense."
You are doing what many newspaper writers and media folks tend to do - taking the idiotic actions of one or two teachers and extrapolating that to teachers as a whole group.
I find this to be unfair.
It is as if I took the actions of Dominic Carter, convicted spousal abuser and former NY1 reporter, and said "I don't know what the qualifications for being a reporter these days are, but it seems being able to beat your spouse for 13 years without being caught is one of them..."
Or for me to point to Jayson Blair, the NY Times reporter who made stuff up and/or plagiarized whole pieces of writing in the NY Times, and said that because Blair got away with his deception for as long as he did that all reporters must be suspected as plagiarists.
Do you see what I mean about the unfairness of these kinds of blanket assertions?
In the past I have let these kinds of things go by without comment, but I have been seeing more and more of them in both the News and the Post lately. And honestly, I think it needs to stop. A few idiots in the group are NOT emblematic of the group as a whole - not for teachers, not for news people.
Thanks for replying.
She replied with this:
God, you're right, and believe me or not, that was inserted by an editor, which angers me. I guess he was referring to original Spanish teacher who brought Alexa to principal, but he should have run this by me and I would have nixed it. I'll make it up to teachers, in your honor, I swear.
Joanna Molloy
I haven't replied back yet. I believe her that an editor added the offensive content, but it's troubling nonetheless if an editor wrote the "Test scores show our kids are getting smarter. That's a good thing, because our educators seem to be getting dumber" and "I don't know what the qualifications are for landing a job as a teacher or principal, but one thing's for sure, it's not common sense" lines.
It surely shows that the editors at the News never let an opportunity to tar all teachers as idiots to go unpassed.
It seems editorial agenda trumps any veneer of journalistic integrity or objectivity these days.
I also believe her. Her article was about the Principals and not about the teacher who sent her to the Principal.
ReplyDeleteSomebody who has written for the News says editors never change a word of what he has written for them. That doesn't mean that Ms. Molloy isn't telling the truth, but it is troubling that an editor would insert anti-teacher lines like I quoted in the post. How often does this happen? How emblematic is this of the attitudes of Daily News editorial staff. We know what they think on the op-ed page; but that shit shouldn't bleed into the "news" section of the paper. But of course the News is a rag, so it does.
ReplyDeleteWhy are they so intent on bashing teachers? I just don't understand!
ReplyDelete