The Sam
Dillon Story
All the News That Wasn't Printed
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Fifth in a Series
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NYT's Dillon Hid Info
from Pulitzer Committee
Published September
29, 2000 in El Universal (Mexico's largest daily) and
24 other Newspapers
Polemic over a Pulitzer
NYT: Dillon, a Maneuver
by the Presidency
Ramírez
Identifies Dillon's Key Source: A Top Aid to Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo
Zedillo
Wanted to Destroy Beltrones to Eliminate His Own Connection to
the Disgraced Carlos Salinas
Dillon
Used Word of Zedillo aide Luis Téllez in His Report Without
Having Seen the Documents
Times
Correspondent: Journalistic Hit Man in Vendetta for Mexican President
Indicador
Político
by Carlos Ramírez
September 29, 2000
Polemic over a Pulitzer
NYT: Dillon, a Maneuver
by the Presidency
In
its September issue, the US magazine
Brill's Content, that covers the media, published a report about
the Pulitzer prize in journalism of the United States and concluded
that its delivery "is plagued by questions of fairness and
accuracy -- and no one's doing anything about it." The NY
Times correspondent in Mexico, Sam Dillon, won a Pulitzer for
his reports on accusations of drug trafficking in Mexico, but
facts have appeared that show Dillon hid information from the
prize committee.
And Brill's Content magazine reported
a clue about the Pulitzer prize in journalism. The administrator
of the prize since 1993 is Seymour Topping, who worked for 34
years for the New York Times as international editor, administrative
director, and editor of the regional newspapers of the New York
daily. Topping, according to the magazine report, "is a
sonorous man with a tuft of white hair, who has a tendency to
answer questions in complete paragraphs replete with parenthetical
clauses and hypothetical rejoinders; when interrupted, he just
plows right on."
A review of the promotion file of the
Pulitzer prize for Dillon and other correspondents in Mexico
revealed an extraordinary fact: Dillon presented a list of eight
works about corruption and drug trafficking in Mexico, some edited
together with Craig Pyes, Julia Preston and Tim Golden, but he
left out the story that disproved a good part of the information
in the other stories. Thus, Dillon, the principal promoter of
the prize to the committee on Mexican themes, hid information
from the Pulitzer prize committee.
Worse, was the fact that a Mexican politician
affected by the reports of Dillon, Preston, Pyes and Golden sent
a letter to the president of the Pulitzer prize committee, George
Rupp, to explain that a good portion of the central content of
the reports on corruption and drug trafficking in Mexico were
constructed from leaks that were not supported by trustworthy
sources. And the Pulitzer committee also ignored a special investigation
that the Mexican Attorney General made that concluded in October
of 1997 - the prize was delivered in April 1998 - that the report
by Sam Dillon and Craig Pyes, published on page one of the New
York Times on Saturday, February 23, 1997, "contains the
existence of crimes of defamation and libel." That is to
say, it lied.
In its report on the Pulitzer, Brill's
Content magazine followed the clues of two similar cases of journalists
awarded or declared finalist for the Pulitzer but the content
of their works was later determined to have been invented: Janet
Cooke and Patricia Smith. The magazine cites a recent case of
reports by the AP news agency in 1999 about the massacre of civilians
in Korea by US troops, but the content later was proven false.
When they asked Topping if he was worried about those revelations
and if they affected the Pulitzer, he simply said "No."
Dillon, Preston, Golden and Pyes might
find themselves in the same situation. But beforehand they would
have to speak of the enormous irresponsibility by the Pulitzer
committee because it ignored information that diminished the
credibility of the New York Times works that were awarded. On
January 23 the Pulitzer's Internet page published the list of
the eight stories by the Times correspondents in Mexico. The
central text was the accusation against Manlio Fabio Beltrones
and Jorge Carrillo Olea, then governors of Sonora and Morelos.
Carrillo Olea never sued, but Beltrones asked the Attorney General
to investigate the accusations.
The ninth story, hidden by the foreign
journalists from the Pulitzer committee, was the key to determine
that the other eight stories lacked credibility. The work hidden
by the journalists was published in the New York Times on May
20, 1997. And it had also included a letter from Beltrones to
the New York Times published in full with a title that simply
exonerated the Sonora governor from the prior accusations of
the daily: "Mexican Official Does Not Have Connection with
Drug Traffickers," almost as an editorial opinion of the
letter, contradicting the reports of Dillon and Pyes. It was
an elegant manner for the New York Times to correct its correspondents.
Dillon, Preston, Golden and Pyes included
in their proposal to the Pulitzer the text of the February 23,
1997 story that had been disproved by the letter and by other
publications in May, July, August, October and December of 1997.
The prize was delivered on April 15, 1998, and on this day Dillon
declared to the daily Reforma that the prize was a vindication
of his reports and a response to the investigation of the Attorney
General. But the same Dillon had signed with Pyes a report on
the front page on March 20, 1997 (hidden from the Pulitzer committee)
which in its tenth paragraph, much against their wishes, the
journalists included facts that disproved their principal report
of February 23rd: "Because officials of the administration
remained silent about the result of the operation for various
days that Mexico had confiscated $16 million dollars, Sandra
Salmon, the US Consul in Sonoro, wrote a letter on March 7th
congratulating the governor of Sonora, Manlio Fabio Beltrones,
for cooperating in what she said was a splendid success."
They also wrote: "In April of 1996
a US Customs Service official based in Hermosillo opened an investigation
and sought the help of Beltrones to identify the business groups
in los Gaxiola. The governor "contributed enormously in
this investigation" said Ms. Salmon in the March 7 letter
to Beltrones.
The issue of the Pulitzer awarded to Dillon
and associates was, in consequence, the product of the hiding
of information that had disproved the content of the texts they
sent to the prize committee. And the matter is going to go much
farther because very soon in the United States, a book written
by a North American journalist about the texts of Dillon, Preston,
Golden and Pyes will be published that demonstrates the hidden
style of journalism by the New York Times correspondents.
The key question is located in knowing
why Dillon dared to accuse Beltrones without having all the proof
in his hands. And there is only one response: A high source of
the Mexican government had leaked the information to the journalist.
And the candle has now run out: the leaking
official was Luis Téllez, then chief of the President's
office. The motive: Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo wanted
to diminish the political weight of those who had managed his
announcement as substitute candidacy for the presidency in 1994.
President Salinas had decided that it would be Zedillo. (Salinas
aid) José Cordoba had prepared the video of (assassinated
presidential candidate Luis Donaldo) Colosio designating Zedillo
as his campaign chief, and Beltrones presented it in the President's
office to the leaders of the PRI to steer them toward Zedillo.
Salinas was already exiled, Cordoba had been marginalized and
Beltrones had not yet been eliminated from politics.
There, Dillon, the all-powerful correspondent
of the New York Times in Mexico, trusted the leak by Téllez,
given as a tip but never proven by documents. The most grave
fact was that knowing that his texts had been disproved by consular
officials of the US and criticized by the attorney general as
defamatory and libelous, Dillon sent them to the Pulitzer committee
but took care to hide the report of March 20th because it disproved
the rest. And obviously he trusted in the fact that the administrator
of the Pulitzer was a veteran official of the New York Times.
With the Pulitzer in his suitcase but
doubts about its credibility, Dillon ended his stay in Mexico
and will have a year to write a book that surely will not tell
the secret history of his prize in journalism.
Prior Stories in This
Series on Corrupted Journalism
June 7, 2000: "Top
Mexican Journalist Challenges NY Times" (Includes resume
of veteran journalist Carlos Ramírez, Mexico's most widely
read columnist)
June 21, 2000: "A
Pulitzer At Stake" (in which NY Times editor Andrew
Rosenthal tried to silence Ramírez and ended up discredited
before the international community)
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