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| One of the many messages left near the scene of a fourth-floor balcony collapse on 16 June in Berkeley, California. Photograph: Peter Dasilva/EPA |
The New York Times apologized on Wednesday after a story about a
balcony collapse in California that left five of Ireland’s citizens dead was
denounced by the country’s government officials.
The article said that students traveling to Berkeley, California on J-1
visas, like those that died in the collapse, were “not just a source of
aspiration, but also a source of embarrassment for Ireland”.
The tone of the piece inspired widespread condemnation from a country
reeling from the deaths of the five young people, all aged 21 or 22. One person
with dual US-Irish citizenship also died.
“It was never our intention to blame the victims and we apologize if
the piece left that impression,” said New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy
in an email.
The students in Berkeley were celebrating a 21st birthday when the
apartment balcony collapsed. Six people died in the incident and seven others
were injured.
The New York Times article was “intended to explain in greater detail
why these young Irish students were in the US”, said Murphy. “We understand and
agree that some of the language in the piece could be interpreted as
insensitive, particularly in such close proximity to this tragedy.”
Anne Anderson, the Irish ambassador to the US, said that language used
in the article was “insensitive and inaccurate” in a public letter to the New
York Times editor.
“No one yet knows what caused the collapse of the fourth-floor balcony;
the matter is under urgent investigation by structural engineers,” Anderson
wrote. “The implication of your article – that the behaviour of the students
was in some way a factor in the collapse – has caused deep offence.”
She said that it is “quite simply wrong” to portray the visa programme
as a “source of embarrassment”.
“Yes, there have been isolated incidents of the type to which your
article refers. But they are wholly unrepresentative: bear in mind that 150,000
young Irish people have participated in the J1 program over the past 50 years,
and some 7,000 are here for Summer 2015,” she said. “From all the feedback we
receive, we know that the overwhelming majority of our J1 participants behave
in a way that does Ireland proud.”
Ireland’s junior minister for new communities, culture and equality,
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, said on Twitter that the newspaper’s reporting about the
collapse “is a disgrace”.
He also called the newspaper’s apology “pathetic”.
Ó Ríordáin told the Guardian that the article propagated a “national
stereotype” of wild, hard-drinking Irish young people.
“If that had been victims from any other nation would they have written
an article like that? To do so in your early coverage of this tragedy is well,
quite frankly disgusting,” he said.
The New York Times public editor, Margaret Sullivan, acknowledged the
furore over the article in her column, where she responds to reader comments
about the newspaper’s coverage as a person outside of its reporting and editing
structure.
She wrote that her office received “hundreds of complaints” about the
article.
Sullivan spoke with the paper’s national editor, Alison Mitchell, about
the story. Mitchell said that “in hindsight” she would have removed the
paragraph that refers to a “national embarrassment”.
Adam Nagourney, one of the reporters on the story, emailed Sullivan an
explanation of what he was trying to do, but said the clarification was not
meant as an excuse.
“Looking back, I had the balance wrong; I put too much emphasis on the
negative aspects, and they were too high in my story,” Nagourney wrote.
He said that “there was a more sensitive way to tell the story” and
that he felt distressed to add anguish to the family and friends of the
victims.
Source: The Guardian
