In the mounting catalogue of National Public Radio’s recent troubles the David D’Arcy affair<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> ranks lowest But in terms of importance, the D’Arcy affair ought to rank as high as the In addition to dumping D’Arcy and posting a misleading correction about the story on its web “We are vigorously pursuing the grievance because no discipline was warranted,” said The matter has gone to arbitration following the cancellation of a grievance meeting between Greene said NPR asserted that D’Arcy could not attend the meeting unless Cole did. “It was A date for the arbitration has not been formalized, Greene said. The case will be heard no It is unclear that Cole wants the union to pursue the violation, but Greene says whether he Neither Cole nor NPR have returned my phone calls for comments. When I informed Greene Among the many ironies of this story — including the fact that the union is going to bat for Postscript:<\/STRONG> Much better head for this item suggested by my staff of In the mounting catalogue of National Public Radio’s recent troubles the David D’Arcy affair ranks lowest in public visibility. In part this is because D’Arcy is an arts reporter, and arts reporting exists in a journalistic ghetto. The arts hold less news interest for the public and for news editors themselves than politics, sports, business […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-i3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin public visibility. In part this is because D’Arcy is an arts reporter, and arts reporting exists in a
\njournalistic ghetto. The arts hold less news interest for the public and for news editors themselves
\nthan politics, sports, business or celebrities. <\/P>
\n
\ndebacles<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> and, now, the right-wing scrutiny by government
\nwatchdogs<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> for supposed liberal bias. What happened to D’Arcy — a top-notch
\nfreelance journalist whose contract was terminated after a piece he did on Holocaust art theft and
\nthe Museum of Modern Art sent MoMA board chairman Ron Lauder so far around the bend that
\nmuseum officials accused D’Arcy of “shabby reporting” and pressured NPR to repudiate it —
\nillustrates how even a well-meaning, public-spirited news organization can be corrupted by the
\ninfluence of a big-money institution with huge cultural power and corporate clout.<\/P>
\n
\nsite, which D’Arcy and others dispute as itself erroneous, NPR disciplined the staff editor who
\nsupervised the D’Arcy piece, Tom Cole, by suspending him for a day without pay. So here’s the
\nlatest wrinkle: The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has brought a grievance
\nagainst NPR for violating disciplinary procedures of the union contract.<\/P>
\n
\nKenneth Greene, assistant executive director of AFTRA’s Baltimore-Washington chapter. Cole is
\na member of AFTRA, which represents 2,600 broadcast personnel in Baltimore and Washington,
\nand about 80,000 nationally.<\/P>
\n
\nNPR and AFTRA that had been scheduled on April 22 to hear the dispute. NPR officials called
\noff the meeting “because the union would not agree to conditions they imposed,” Greene told me
\nyesterday. “I have a right to present the grievance. They have no right to force me to acquiesce to
\ntheir conditions that have no basis in the contract.”<\/P>
\n
\nboth or neither,” he said. AFTRA wanted D’Arcy, who is not a member of the union, to be at the
\nmeeting as a witness in the case, Green said, “because he has facts, first-hand knowledge that
\nrefutes a deficient investigation by NPR. We wanted all the relevant facts. Not only was the
\ndiscipline not warranted, but their whole investigation of the matter ignored due process.”<\/P>
\n
\nlater than the end of July, he said, with a decision expected as soon as early August or by
\nmid-September at the latest.<\/P>
\n
\ndoes or not is irrelevant. “Some employees don’t want to pursue a violation because it’s not worth
\nthe trouble for them,” Greene noted. “He lost a day’s pay. In the grand scheme of things that
\nmight not be a big deal to him. But the union has a contract to enforce. It’s our guiding
\nlight.”<\/P>
\n
\nI had tried to reach Cole, he said he was going to tell him not to discuss the case with me. D’Arcy,
\nreached in Iceland where he was covering a story, said he preferred not to comment.<\/P>
\n
\nsomeone who seems to have accepted his suspension and put it behind him — is that D’Arcy has
\nearned a reputation as one of the nation’s most knowledgeable arts reporters, especially when it
\ncomes to the issue of Holocaust art theft.
\n
\nthousands: Union Says NPR Flushed
\nMedia Ethics Manual Down Toilet, Caved to MoMA, Fired Reporter Over Holocaust Loot
\nStory<\/FONT><\/B><\/SPAN><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"