David D’Arcy, a contributor to NPR for over 20 years prior to his recent "termination," has filed a $5 million lawsuit against NPR and the Museum of Modern Art. D’Arcy alleges the museum pressured NPR into running a "false correction" that suggested he got his facts wrong and didn’t give MoMA a chance to comment in a piece. The New York Post ran an article about the suit in Sunday’s paper (it’s not available online). Here’s the beginning:
An axed National Public Radio reporter has filed a $5 million suit
against the news organization and the Museum of Modern Art, claiming
that he was slandered for his report on a Nazi-looted painting once
displayed at the museum.
David D’Arcy says MoMA retaliated against him for the piece -
which questioned the museum’s role in a Jewish family’s fight to
reclaim Egon Schiele’s "Portrait of Wally" - by allegedly lying to NPR
and saying he got his facts wrong.
D’Arcy, who had freelanced for NPR for 21 years, was "terminated" after
an inquiry into the report, which aired in December 2004 on "All Things
Considered."
The Manhattan journalist, who still reports for the BBC and other
outlets, claims the museum pressured NPR to issue a "false correction"
and threatened to cut off the news organization from stories and museum
events.
D’Arcy had filed two reports on the painting prior to the December 2004 broadcast. He reported on the painting in September 1999, and again in August 2000. But the one that set off the chain of events was from December 27, 2004. You can listen to it here, and this is the story description on the NPR site:
The Museum of Modern Art is opposing a Jewish family and the U.S.
government over a painting seized by the Nazis in 1939. MOMA wants the
work by Austrian painter Egon Schiele sent back to the Austrian
foundation that lent it for a show. But under U.S. law, "Portrait of
Wally" could be stolen property that should be returned to the family.
David D’Arcy reports.
Above that description is this correction:
Correction: The government, not the museum, has custody of the artwork.
The museum says it took no position on the question of the painting’s
ownership. NPR failed to give the museum a chance to answer allegations
about its motivations and actions.
According to a March 15, 2005 column by NPR ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, NPR also aired a "clarification" to the piece in January 2005. Dvorkin’s column gives some background on the correction. He also refers to an Artnet.com story that was critical of D’Arcy’s dismissal:
After being contacted by MoMA, NPR aired a clarification of the
story. The artnet.com story suggests that NPR caved into pressure from
a powerful cultural institution. Sounds like a classic story of big
cultural institution running over the rights of dispossessed owners of
great art, right?
But the story is more complicated: the
original report did not, in my opinion, fully and accurately present
all of the facts. Nor did it present MoMA’s position on the ownership
question. The painting has been in federal custody for years, and
MoMA’s position is that the Austrian courts must decide the painting’s
legal owners, since the painting was in the United States only as part
of a loan arrangement.
Most important, in an issue of
journalistic fairness, the report did not give MoMA a chance to respond
to specific and direct charges leveled against it by numerous critics.
The original report was wrongly framed, and NPR was right to air a
clarification in early January.
The Post reported, "D’Arcy claims that MoMA deliberately ‘mischaracterized’ the Schiele case to NPR ‘in order to make me appear
to be a reckless, dishonest, unethical and irresponsible journalist’."
D’Arcy contents that, unlike the correction states, the museum was given a chance to comment and it has taken a position on the ownership of the painting.
"MoMA declined comment, saying it had not received a copy of the
lawsuit," reported the Post. "An NPR spokeswoman said that MoMA never pressured the
organization to fire D’Arcy and that an inquiry by a co-managing editor
found that ‘the piece did not meet NPR News standards in its
reporting’."
We’ll keep you posted.
