A Reporter Responds to ‘Hurricane’ Fight

It’s flattering to be mentioned in two articles in the Calendar section concerning the contretemps over the truthfulness of the movie “The Hurricane.” It would have been more satisfying if the Los Angeles Times had given me or the New York Times the opportunity to reply to the charges made by the filmmakers that I wrote an unethical and inaccurate story about the movie’s treatment of actual events and real people.

My involvement in the controversy over the film’s accuracy and artistic license stems from an article of mine published on Dec. 28 in the New York Times. I covered the triple-murder case involving Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and John Artis from 1974 to 1988 for the New York Times. Because editors considered “The Hurricane” an important film, I was assigned to compare the film version with the most significant episodes and evidence in the landmark case.

Universal Pictures was promoting the movie as “the triumphant true story of an innocent man’s 20-year fight for justice,” and it would have been remiss of the New York Times, which covered the case extensively, to ignore an adaptation that would be seen by a huge audience. Such coverage should come as no surprise to Hollywood, since most newspapers routinely report on the authenticity of major films that deal with compelling historical subjects.

My story was not a critique of the movie or an opinion piece. It dealt with the film’s accuracy concerning the key aspects and the vital figures of the case, not with every detail of the scenario. The reporting was based on evidence, undisputed court records and statements by the principal players in this saga. Other reporters and columnists in the New York-New Jersey area wrote pieces citing the film’s blatant distortions and omissions of vital elements in the case. Oddly, the film’s producers have reserved their assaults for the New York Times and me.

Your story on Feb. 6 (“Truth Isn’t in the Details,” by Eric Harrison) noted that the film’s producers attacked my integrity and accuracy on their Web site, in a full-page ad in Variety and in a letter to the New York Times “rebutting” supposed numerous misrepresentations made by me about the movie. That story also quoted one of the film’s executive producers, Rudy Langlais, as declaring that I set out to “lynch” the movie because my role as a reporter in the case was unacknowledged.

Lynching is probably the most offensive and inflammatory charge that could be leveled against anyone who points out flaws in a major movie about racial injustice. Yet it was published without a reply from me, contrary to a fundamental tenet of fair journalism.

Your story failed to report that in a reply to the producers, Martin Gottlieb, the deputy culture editor of the New York Times, fully supported the accuracy of my reporting and found no merit in any of the producers’ complaints.

As to Langlais’ assertion that unmitigated envy motivated my reporting, it must have been predicated on his vast psychoanalytic powers to plumb the emotion and ego of someone he has never met. The Los Angeles Times, if it had checked, might have learned that I turned down proposals for book and movie deals about the case because I did not want to damage efforts by Carter to sell his story to Hollywood and to a publisher.

In a Calendar story on Feb. 8 (“Will This Fight End in a TKO?,” by Patrick Goldstein)--again published without my reaction to personal attacks--I was included as one of the “self-serving” attorneys and reporters who felt slighted, and I was specifically portrayed by Langlais as “upset” for being left out of the film. Moreover, the Los Angeles Times reported that I had excluded from my story Langlais’ defense of the artistic process that went into the making of the film.

I did have a telephone conversation with Langlais before my story was published. I told him that the story would focus on the film’s handling of the essential facts of the Carter-Artis case and Carter’s background--not the methodology behind the film’s creation, but rather the end results. Incidentally, shortly before my 1,200-word story was published, the New York Times ran two longer pieces on the evolution of the film and lengthy interviews with Denzel Washington, who portrays Carter, and Norman Jewison, the director.

Undoubtedly, “The Hurricane” is not the last production that will generate legitimate discussion about the liberties that Hollywood can take with history. Langlais, in the press kit for the film, says that it is important to be true to the people whose lives are depicted in the story. But he unabashedly adds: “Facts can’t help but stand in the way of a good story.”

Fortunately, reporters have a different standard. We are obligated to separate the chaff from the wheat. That was all I was trying to do, even if the producers and the director of “The Hurricane” suggest that no newspaper or mere reporter should have the audacity to challenge their concept of the truth.

Selwyn Raab retired from the New York Times in August and now works as a freelance writer and consultant.

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