You can watch the interview above (or on YouTube), listen to it on Spotify or Apple, or read the transcript.
In this new interview conducted over the weekend, former full-time education reporter Erica L. Green describes last week’s release of her new book (co-written with fellow New York Times reporter Katie Benner) as an occasionally overwhelming homecoming — “a culmination of so much of what I covered my entire education reporting career.”
And she’s been gratified to see that — for the most part — readers and reviewers seem to have understood that the purpose of the book isn’t to vilify or to exonerate the parents, the Landries, the students, or the college admissions system in any simplistic kind of way.
The gist of what Green has to say is that college admissions is far from a meritocracy, elite colleges aren’t the only measure of student success, and — most of all — the success of Black students shouldn’t be used as a societal release valve to distract attention from a punishingly inequitable system.
“When they succeed, we celebrate — and when they don’t, the the failure is on them,” says Green. But “the failure is not on them. It is on this country.”
Asked how her journalism has changed since the Landry scandal was exposed eight years ago, Green says she’s become “a lot more radicalized” and cites as an example her onetime belief that the Landry kids could have gotten into elite colleges without faked transcripts and essays.
“I helped feed a lot of the narratives that we now see in the book have been so consequential and detrimental.”
What should journalists do differently? According to Green, it’s keeping kids at the forefront of the story, questioning why a story appeals so much, and not backing down in the face of resistance to journalistic skepticism — even if the questions are interpreted as being racist or if what you find might be misused by some as confirming incorrect views.
Most of all, journalists need to depict the people they write about as fully human characters, not tokens or stereotypes.
Watch the interview above (or on YouTube), listen to it on Spotify or Apple, or read the unedited transcript.
Previously from The Grade
The necessary discomfort of debunking a feel-good education story (Katie Benner)
New York Times TM Landry story exposes school fraud and media credulity
What makes New York Times education reporter Erica Green so good?
How to write better stories about students with disabilities (Amy Silverman)
