Newswatch: The Pulitzer Hoax-Who Can Be Believed?

The scandal simply would not go away. For days after it broke, the Washington Post harped on the shame it felt for having published the hoax that won a Pulitzer—the touching but phony story of an eight-year-old dope addict. The following Sunday the paper filled 3½ pages with a remarkably frank and thorough examination of how it happened, written by the newspaper's ombudsman, Bill Green. One word among his 18,000 words said it all: "Inexcusable." To publish Green's findings without change did credit to an excellent newspaper, but the findings themselves gave plenty of evidence of the Post's shortcomings. Such a self-examination comes close to self-flagellation, but this is a durable scandal that affects the credibility of all the press, and there is much to learn from it.

Journalists generally rank the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as the three best papers in the country. The Post's particular distinction is its pizazz. This is largely the doing of its celebrated executive editor, Ben Bradlee, aggressive, abrasive, amusing —the very model of Jason Robards in All the President's Men. With Watergate to his credit, he glories in playing what he describes as journalistic "hardball." He is a Harvardman who talks constantly in street profanity.

The Post has fine national and foreign reporting and a good editorial page, and another distinction: in a city that is 70% black, it now covers the black community with attention and understanding. It is among the leaders in American newspapers in hiring blacks (38 on a journalistic staff of 363).

Into this welcoming atmosphere 1½ years ago came Janet Cooke, black, attractive, ambitious and 25. Her academic credentials were impressive, though false; she dressed well and lived well (though later there was talk of checks bouncing). She also wrote well and got frequent bylines, culminating in her sensational dope addict story last September, "Jimmy's World."

Cooke's city editor, Milton Coleman, also black, is conscientious, though new on the job. He did not demand—as most editors would have, and all should—to know the names of the anonymous child and his mother. He believed Cooke's story that her own life was in danger. Bob Woodward, the metropolitan editor, believed the story too—which is surprising, since in the bestselling Watergate books that made millionaires of Woodward and his partner Carl Bernstein, he made such a proud point of how every Watergate detail had to be doubly verified by a second source, often the still unidentified Deep Throat. (Since the scandal broke, the Post has gamely printed some tough critical mail, including: "Is it possible that little 'Jimmy' does, in fact, exist and is living on the very street with 'Deep Throat'?"). After the hoax was discovered, Woodward said, "I've never felt as negligent."