In the fall of 1989, Rev. Ralph Abernathy came out with a memoir about his time as a close aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Abernathy told the tale that Rev. King committed adultery with two women on the night before he was murdered. On NBCs “Today,” Bryant Gumbel, then a co-host of NBC’s Today, lectured: “When the truth collides with a legend, print the legend.”
When Abernathy noted that King’s exploits were “common knowledge,” Gumbel retorted, “It would better stated, perhaps, to say that it was common accusation.” He claimed that those pages “just as easily could have been left out … one could argue that your writings prove nothing.”
All this came to mind on March 18, when came out with an investigative report that Mexican-American labor leader Cesar Chavez, another “civil rights icon,” had not only committed adultery, but reportedly forced himself on girls as young as 12. Chavez died in 1993.
His top female ally in that farmworkers labor movement, Dolores Huerta, told the Times that Chavez had raped her in a truck in the winter of 1966, and had pressured her into sex in 1960. She said she had two children with him, who were given to other people to raise. Why didnt this come out sooner? Huerta worried It might “hurt the Farm Worker movement.” So, print the legend.
All the networks picked up on March 18, although the “CBS Evening News” only found space for 90 words. On the “PBS News Hour,” they interviewed Miriam Pawel, who wrote a book on Chavez and his movement in 2014. She said Chavezs adultery was “well-known,” but that the new findings are “disturbing, and add a whole other dimension to what we have known about Cesar Chavez and to what in some sense has been an ongoing reassessment of his legacy over the last 20 years.”
ABC reporter John Quinones was stark: “Cesar Chavez has been a civil rights icon, a champion of farm workers and hero to millions of Latinos. But tonight, that legacy shattered after an explosive investigation by The New York Times detailing allegations Chavez groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the farm workers movement.” ABC added that “Chavez has been honored with murals, schools and streets named after him, and celebrations.”
On March 19, Quinones landed an interview with Huerta, and when he asked her what she would say to Chavez today, she said, “How could you?” Huerta didnt talk about her abuse by Chavez until she learned about the women who told the Times about their abuse as teenagers.
She shocked Quinones when he asked how their supporters should feel now. She said “I think we have to remember the good that he did. I don’t know â about the terrible things that he did. I think we leave it up â in God’s hands. He was a great leader, but unfortunately he had an evil side to him.”
On “NBC Nightly News,” reporter Camila Bernal laid out the journalistic details about the of teenaged girls: “The Times said it found extensive evidence to support the two women’s claims through interviews with more than 60 people, union records, confidential documents.” She added “Neither the paper nor NBC News have been able to corroborate Huerta’s claims.” Its hard to imagine her statement that “I chose to keep my pregnancies secret,” unless she disappeared from public view for several months each time.
Its unsurprising that NBC concluded with “Huerta says the farm workers movement has always been more important than any one individual.” If she really believed that, why did she just make her allegations now?
We should be satisfied that the broadcast networks picked this story up instead of using the Bryant Gumbel standard and sticking with “the legend.” It didnt hurt that the story came from The New York Times, which they think is the greatest newspaper in America. If this story had been published by a conservative newspaper or magazine or website, there would have been more hesitation, if not cries of fake news.
None of these
