By Ankush
Vivian Aplin-Brownlee, part of the first small wave of African-American women to work their way up through major newspapers, died a week ago. The Washington Post obituary is a nice tribute to her work (and includes a really lovely picture of her, as well).
Aplin-Brownlee was an editor at the Post when Janet Cooke published "Jimmy's World," an infamous, Pulitzer Price-winning piece about an 8-year-old heroin addict, which was later retracted by the paper because the story was bogus. I did not, however, know that the drama included a supporting role from the archetypal truth-seeking journalist with unmatched news instincts:
"[Aplin-Brownlee] looked at the story on Page 1, turned to me and said, 'I don't believe a word of this,' " said her husband of 32 years, Dennis Brownlee. She tried several times to alert higher-level editors that the story didn't sound right and that Cooke was not capable of doing the reporting she said she had done. But the other editors dismissed her concerns, and Bob Woodward, the Metro section's assistant managing editor at the time, promoted Cooke to the city staff.
One could heavily snark at this, but that'd be a tad unfair considering that so many people at the paper went right along with him. It was another iteration of an old problem in journalism -- people occasionally buy into fantastical tales that are too good to be true because they love a great piece of journalism.
But then, all those other people don't have Woodward's reputation for being a hard-nosed newsperson. A story like this helps underscore what is, I think, one of the central truths of Woodward. Far from it being the case that he's an exemplary talent who makes a misstep here and there, he is, rather, a mediocre reporter who had a stunning journalistic coup (for which he was rightly praised) but who, since then, has not done much more than trade off of his proximity to power and serve as a conduit for elite political opinion.
