Talk:Walter Duranty

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Duranty apologists are claiming that the article is too POV, fine. In an effort to add a little rigor to the much deserved bitch slapping of this odious historical figure, I'm editing the article list heading in order to make clear that these were pulitzer prize articles. I've compared the list of pulitzer articles from here (http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2003/300302.shtml) and reconciling it with the already existing external list of Duranty articles. It's the same set of articles. 65.104.190.4 18:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Woops, I hadn't realized I wasn't logged in. The above commentary from 65.104.190.4 is mine TMLutas 18:22, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Much of this article is POV, unsourced and so forth. The introduction says such things as he "is widely seen as an apologist for Joseph Stalin". On the contrary, he was a New York Times reporter and won a Pulitzer Prize, and all of this nonsense about him did not come about until a half century or so after Mr. Duranty's death. As far as Von Hagen's review of Duranty's work, he did criticize some aspects of it, but not as much as was stated. Ruy Lopez 23:17, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

what the hell are you talking about?

http://www.nationalreview.com/stuttaford/stuttaford050703.asp

" We will never know whether Walter Duranty, the principal New York Times correspondent in the U.S.S.R., ever visited Fediivka. Almost certainly not. What we do know is that, in March 1933, while telling his readers that there had indeed been "serious food shortages" in the Ukraine, he was quick to reassure them that "there [was] no actual starvation." There had been no "deaths from starvation," he soothed, merely "widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition." So that was all right then.

But, unlike Khrushchev, Duranty, a Pulitzer Prize winner, no less, was keeping count — in the autumn of 1933 he is recorded as having told the British Embassy that ten million had died. ** "The Ukraine," he said, "had been bled white," remarkable words from the journalist who had, only days earlier, described talk of a famine as "a sheer absurdity," remarkable words from the journalist who, in a 1935 memoir had dismayingly little to say about one of history's greatest crimes. Writing about his two visits to the Ukraine in 1933, Duranty was content to describe how "the people looked healthier and more cheerful than [he] had expected, although they told grim tales of their sufferings in the past two years." As Duranty had explained (writing about his trip to the Ukraine in April that year), he "had no doubt that the solution to the agrarian problem had been found". "

Really? these are "lies"? If these really are Duranty's quotes I think there should be no question about rescinding the Pulitzer, and regardless of that the NYT should finally issue an apology instead of boasting about it's precious prize. Just some thoughts, obviously not meant to be unbiased.

One of the problems with recinding the Pulitzer is that Duranty won it for what he wrote before 1933. While his actions in 1933 were reprehensible, taking away a prize he won for writings in 1931 doesn't directly follow. There is also a bigger problem in that it isn't just Duranty and the Times that are gulity over the famine, its almost *every* regular reporter in the Soviet Union during the famine. I very specifically include Malcolm Muggeridge who didn't write accounts of the famine under his name, didn't challenge Duranty in public and has in the years since tried to spin his cowardly and dishonest actions into something they were not.
It wasn't JUST Walter Duranty and the Times. Every reporter and paper covering the Soviet Union in those years compromised itself. The reason why Duranty survived as a reporter in 1933 was that nobody was willing to speak up in public against him. If Malcolm Muggeridge and a couple others who knew the truth had come forward. Or if the governments who knew (UK, US, France

...etc) had come forward with the truth, Duranty would have been finished.

In my opinion, the whole movement to take the prize away is mostly an overly political cause aimed at attacking the modern New York Times. If people want to do whats right, stop focusing on Duranty and start trying to get an after the fact Pulitzer for Garth Jones. He was a true hero as a journalist but has been left an unrecognized unknown. Giving him an award now would mean much more than taking away the given to Duranty. 152.163.100.6 14:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Currently, the vast majority of the article and its links are to websites highly critical of Duranty. I do not think that this is a balanced view. Remember, Duranty was a highly respected journalist for decades. The article needs to reflect this, rather than simply dwelling on Duranty's failure in reporting Soviet atrocities. Crotalus horridus 15:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Shame, Crotalus! The fact that this liar was respected at his times (especially by 'freedom-loving' Western 'progressives' never seen the life in Stalinist USSR), does not conclude that we are not allowed to call him a monstrous liar now. The toll of Holodomor victims is comparable to Holocaust -- and you probably agree that it's hard to deal a Holocaust denier (of the time those crimes were committed or of present days) neutrally. Constanz - Talk 13:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Perhaps, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I mean, come on, practically the ENTIRE article is the section "Criticisms". Name one other article on wikipedia like that.-86.138.233.25 16:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Walter Duranty knew of starvation, reported it privately, and misled the western public that there was no starvation. This was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a pro-soviet slant. What, specifically should be noted as praiseworthy about the man? I guess some details of his family life couldn't hurt but I'm just not interested in spending my time on the project. Perhaps you are? TMLutas 18:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I would have to agree with TMLutas. Duranty's contribution to History has been the role played by him as "the expert" on the Soviet Union, as the middle man between the Western public (specifically Roosevelt) and Stalin's "grand experiment." Duranty fed his editors and readers just what they wanted to hear. In return, Duranty was materially reciprocated. Hence, what makes Duranty historically special is not his mediocre life prior to the assignment in Moscow, but the role played as a Western journalist of "a reputable and credible newspaper" describing "accurately" the events taking place in the Soviet Union at the time. Duranty fully meets the definition of a lier and an apologist, and the article about him explains this with reliance on emperical research.--Riurik 17:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
The article has been reworked to fix the POV problems but still preserve the spirit of what was there before. To avoid POV, the article has to be about the person as a whole rather than a specific controversy. Its also not really necessary to go after Duranty with strong POV because his own words and ideas are the most damaging thing that can be presented.

[edit] Link repair

I arrived on the scene in response to the "Link Rot" listing of 404 pages at the Community Portal, so I am not approaching this with any personal POV. The link itself was absolutely missing on this visit, but since I could reconstruct an (apparently) similar link with the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Union website, I did re-enter and restore it. I will leave the verifiability or the POV-ness of the link or the article to those of you who know the subject better. --KJPurscell 20:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Character Assassination

In his New York Times articles (including one published on March 31, 1933), Duranty repeatedly denied the existence of a Ukrainian famine in 1932–33.

In an article in NYT, August 24 1933, he claimed "any report of a famine is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda",

This is a pure distortion of his reporting. For one, the quotation is selective. This is what Duranty really wrote on 23 August 1933:

The excellent harvest about to be gathered shows that any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda

Duranty was entirely correct on this. Demographic reports from the archives show that by September, death rates in Ukraine had largely returned to normal. In June, the crude death rate in Ukraine was 196/1000. By September, however, it dropped to 23/1000. Duranty was therefore correct with his assertion that at the time of his writing, famine in USSR had ceased. As Duranty wrote, the splendid harvest of 1933 had ended by the start of autumn.

Duranty, in the very same article, wrote the following:

The food shortage which has affected almost the whole population in the last year, and particularly in the grain-producing provinces--that is, the Ukraine, North Caucasus, the Lower Volga region--has, however, caused heavy loss of life. Although it is pure guesswork to attempt any estimate of the loss of life so far, not so much from actual starvation as from manifold diseases due to lowered resistance and to general disease in the last year, approximations are now possible. Among peasants and others receiving bread rations conditions were certainly not better. So with a total population in the Ukraine, North Caucasus and Lower Volga of upward of 40,000,000 the normal death rate would have been about 1,000,000. Lacking official figures, it is a conservative to suppose that this was at least trebled last year in those provinces and considerably increased for the Soviet Union as a whole.

Above, Duranty acknowledged severe economic hardships among the population. Duranty was correct in saying that deaths resulted from manifold diseases rather than actual starvation. Soviet data showed 800,000 cases of typhus in 1933. In the famine-stricken regions of Ukraine, North Caucasus, and Lower Volga, Duranty estimated that there were perhaps 2 million excess deaths. Guess what--Duranty was correct nearly 60 years before the exposure of declassified Soviet data. For 1933 declassified Soviet data showed a total of 1.73 million excess deaths in Ukraine, Lower Volga, and North Caucasus.

Therefore, not only did Duranty acknowledge the occurrence of famine which he correctly called a food shortage, he also proved remarkably accurate in his estimations of the demographic consequences.

Your case isn't very convincing. You are parsing words and looking at information in a selective manner in a way similar to Duranty himself. Rather than looking at words written only in August, it would be helpful to include earlier statements he made in March. He called the famine at that time a "big scare story". He then goes on (as you do) to somehow make a distinction between deaths due to outright starvation in a famine and deaths due to disease based malnutration. I personally don't understand the distinction. In most any famine, disease and malnutition will inevitably be a larger cause of death than outright starvation. If people have so little food that they die of disease, that is a famine.
Duranty does tell the truth in a way and his attitude in doing so is very revealing. He uses the phrase "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" to describe their attitude and then compares the famine deaths to a baseless claim that generals in the first world war ordered costly attacks to show "spirit" to superiors.
Duranty engaged in endless doubletalk. He admitted "serious shortage food shortage throughout the country", "widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition" and said "conditions are definitely bad in certain sections- the Ukraine, North Caucasus and Lower Volga" but to him all this added up to "there is no famine". Even after he knew of close to two million dead in those regions, he still insisted there was no famine. If not famine, what is the word to describe a situation where 1.73 million or more people die due to a lack of proper food?

12.96.162.45 22:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Please read works by scholars such as Taylor, Crowl, von Hagen and others. Their in-depth research ought to answer lots of questions. Details are listed under the reference section. --Riurik (discuss) 21:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

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