Covering your own crisis
In the fall of 2007, Andrews went to his editors with a book proposal. He wanted to tell how the subprime mortgage crisis happened — greedy lenders, regulators who looked the other way and people like himself who made foolish choices.
Though the timing was terrible for The Times — Andrews was the main Washington reporter on the story — he burned to illuminate a national crisis through his personal experience. And he had another strong reason: He needed money.
“I was desperate,” he said. He still is. Seven months behind on his mortgage, he may lose his home unless “Busted,” which comes out this week, is a hit.
When Craig Whitney, the standards editor, read Andrews’s proposal, he asked, “Can you really keep covering this issue if you’re personally involved?” Andrews said he did not think any policy decisions would affect him, but if they did, it would not be much different from a reporter covering taxes who stood to benefit from a middle-class tax cut.
After an
article adapted from “Busted” was published in last week’s Sunday magazine, Bradley Laue, a lawyer in Greeley, Colo., asked how Andrews could continue covering economics. Laue said it would be “like me being disbarred and then reporting on the ethics of lawyers.”
Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief, disagreed. Andrews used poor judgment, he said, but it was legal and encouraged by the lending system.
Baquet said that Andrews’s own experience gave him a perspective shared by millions of Americans, an advantage.
Kelly McBride, an ethicist at the Poynter Institute, agreed. With vigilance by editors, she said, “this guy could be the perfect person to cover this story.”
I do not think Andrews is the same as a disbarred lawyer, but I do not think he is the same as a reporter covering tax cuts, unless that reporter is way behind in paying his taxes.
Baquet said he saw no conflict in Andrews’s personal situation and his beat, but he knew that some people would perceive one, so he tried to minimize the reporter’s involvement in “covering things directly related to the housing collapse.” Andrews told me: “I shy away from articles about the pros and cons of this approach or that approach in aiding homeowners. I would have too much at stake.”
But Baquet acknowledged they have not been rigorous about it. Andrews
shared a front-page byline when President Obama announced his plan to help homeowners in danger of foreclosure. He wrote about details of the plan, demands by senators that foreclosures be delayed, and an agreement to freeze interest rates on some subprime mortgages.
Andrews is an excellent reporter who explains complex issues clearly. There are plenty of them to cover without assigning him to those that could directly affect whether he keeps his own house. He is too close to that story.
He can’t be too cautious. On Thursday, he came under attack from
a blogger for The Atlantic for not mentioning in his book that his wife had twice filed for bankruptcy — the second time while they were married, though Andrews said it involved an old loan from a family member. He said he had wanted to spare his wife any more embarrassment. The blogger said the omission undercut Andrews’s story, but I think it was clear that he and his wife could not manage their finances, bankruptcies or no. Still, he should have revealed the second one, if only to head off the criticism.
