The Times Of Course

This Kurtz column has two revelations that no one cares about.


First, remember Peter Kilborn? He's the national correspondent for the Times who led the email charge against Bragg, declaring "Bragg's comments in defense of his reportorial routines are outrageous," And, "Bragg says he works in a poisonous atmosphere. He's the poison."

But thanks to Kurtz we can read this:

But former Times intern Amie Parnes says she did substantial reporting for Kilborn when he was filling in for an ailing Bragg as Miami bureau chief in 2000.

And

"I don't think he has the right to point the finger at someone and say, 'I don't do this,' when clearly he does," says Parnes, now a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter

So, one of the leaders of the internal anti-Bragg brigade appears to be a sanctimonious liar and character assassin. I find that interesting but not surprising. But apparently i am one of the few who find it interesting.

Here is the second point. Parnes told Kurtz,

"That's what boiled my blood." She adds: "There's the jealousy factor with Rick. . . . Here's a guy who isn't a Timesman, didn't go to an Ivy League college, and walked into the Times and won a Pulitzer."

Here she touches on the a disturbing undercurrent of the anti-Raines bashing. All the talk about the Bragg being a "crony", "favorite", "suck-up", lays a lot of weight on Bragg and Raines both being from Alabama. The unspoken assumption seems to be that Bragg had no talent that would justify his high reputation. No uneducated cracker could be a better writer or reporter than Todd Purdum (another Bragg basher) or Peter Kilborn. I mean Bragg didn't go to prep school or Princeton, he didn't marry Dee Dee Myers, and he didn't go to parties with the gang from the West Wing. Surely the only way he could have gotten ahead at the Times was the good old boy network.