Whoopi and the NY Times: Both Classy

Whoopi Goldberg apologized to the New York Times after her tirade about NY Times film critics, Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott not mentioning her in their article, “Hollywood’s Whiteout.”

“I said that I felt the reporting was shoddy and for that I’m going to apologize, OK? I personally found the article really confusing, and as I said, I was also quite hurt that Cuba Gooding Jr., Louis Gossett Jr., and myself were not included in this expose about black Hollywood. But for saying it was shoddy reporting, I apologize, New York Times.”

Ms. Goldberg had previously vehemently declared that she felt “dismissed” and “erased” because the article failed to mention her by name while discussing African Americans who have won Oscars. The reason for not mentioning her, the New York Times said, was because the article meant to talk about black actors who have won Oscars since 2002.

Whoopi won an Oscar for her role in “Ghost” in 1990. Jumping the gun after fully expecting her name to be in the article, and not noticing the 2002 thingy, Whoopi said on The View that it was “sloppy journalism.”

“I am embarrassed to tell you it hurt me terribly … to be dismissed and erased by the New York Times film critics,” the star of “The Color Purple” (for which she did not win an Oscar either) said. Winning the Oscar is an honor she will always have and she will always be an Oscar winner, she said and scolded the New York Times: “You’re supposed to be better than this.”

But the Times showed class in refusing to buckle under this attack and sent a statement to Entertainment Weekly:

“The error lies with those who are reading the story incorrectly. The point of the piece was not to name every black actor or actress who has been awarded an Oscar, it was to draw a comparison between the number who won prior to 2002 (the year Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won) and those who have won since. And the story states very clearly that in 73 years, prior to 2002, only seven black actors/actresses won Oscars.”

It probably would have been better for Whoopi to contact the writers before she went off the rails on television, but Whoopi showed class in apologizing.

The silly misunderstanding illustrates a few things:

• Don’t blast someone on TV unless you’re sure you’re right.
• Explain if you’re not wrong but apologize if you are wrong.

What we have learned:

• If you have a word count problem, you don’t have to name every single person in an article who ever had something to do with what you are talking about.
• Even If you have a word count problem, it was only eight more words: Whoopi Goldberg, Louis Gossett, Jr. and Cuba Gooding, if you left out the movies.
• It was a stupid article anyway.