The Reporter Who Got It Right
By John Tierney
The New York Times
Shortly before the 2004 election, Garrison Keillor published "Homegrown Democrat," explaining at great length why he is a Democrat, and at greater length why Democrats are better human beings than Republicans. It became, of course, a best seller.Related Articles:
As evidence of moral superiority, Keillor told how paramedics in St. Paul had appeared at his door within two minutes when his daughter had convulsions. This municipal service, he explained, was part of the "civil contract" that urban Democrats offered.
"In the suburbs, thanks to Republicans and their code of personal responsibility, the coronary victim will have time to read the entire Gospel of St. Mark before help arrives," he wrote. "There is a message here: if lower taxes are your priority over human life, then we know what sort of person you are."
This week in Washington, a city run by Democrats with Keillor's views on taxes and public services, the municipal ambulance service has been making news for the help it didn't provide to David Rosenbaum. David, a friend and colleague of mine at The New York Times, died Sunday from severe injuries to his head and body from a mugging two nights earlier near his home.
David was still alive and conscious when a neighbor found him lying on the sidewalk and summoned help, but it took 23 minutes for the city ambulance to arrive and another 25 minutes for him to reach the hospital. He was not examined for at least another hour at the hospital, according to The Washington Post, which reported that the ambulance technicians failed to detect his injuries and mistakenly told hospital workers that he was drunk.
I do not mention these facts to make a case against government-run ambulance services. That would be a disservice to David. He abhorred argument by anecdote, especially from conservatives who used bureaucratic horror stories to justify their policies. David spent three decades covering Washington but never became a cynic, never lost faith that public servants could do good. "I like paying taxes," he used to say.
But he also never confused good intentions with good results. He would have found Keillor's pieties as useless as the pronouncements of right-wing moralists.
He was a wonk's wonk. If you had asked him whether city ambulance services were better than the private ambulance companies hired by suburban governments, he wouldn't have answered until he'd filled a manila folder with studies and interview notes. I like to think he would have seen the advantages of privatization, but the wonderful thing about David - the reason I went to him so often for guidance - was that you couldn't guess what he'd conclude.
He knew that both parties proclaimed noble goals and stuffed ignoble fine print into the budgets and tax bills he dissected. As Washington became polarized and politics was cast as a battle between virtue and evil, David remained a journalist trusted by both sides. The Times's first public editor, Daniel Okrent, read more than 15,000 complaints from readers about the paper's coverage, but he can't recall any about a Rosenbaum article.
"David had absolutely no agenda," said Warren Rudman, the former Republican senator from New Hampshire. "A lot of reporters do seem to have an end they're trying to get to. David just wanted to understand what was going on, and I always marveled how he got it right."
In 1999, when Congress was rushing to regulate health maintenance organizations, members of both parties spent an afternoon telling a litany of stories of suffering patients, culminating with the appearance on the House floor of a 7-year-old boy who had lost his hands and legs. David reported the stories, but he also noted what wasn't being said: health care costs had been devastating companies and governments until expenses were controlled by managed-care companies.
"No one rose to the industry's defense," he wrote. "As far as the House of Representatives was concerned, the cost of health care, one of the central political questions facing the country, was a subject for another time and another place."
That was not the kind of insight that got David on talk shows or the best-seller list, but it won him legions of admirers in Washington. The Alito confirmation hearing was recessed yesterday so that senators could attend the memorial service on Capitol Hill. The room was packed and the tears were bipartisan as politicians and journalists tried to come to terms with his death. It was so senseless, so irrational, so unfair. So unlike David.
Photo credit: John Tierney. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)
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