James C. McKinley, Jr.

James Courtwright McKinley, Jr. is an American journalist who is the Houston bureau chief of The New York Times, a position he was appointed to in 2008.

Personal

McKinley (born 1962) is a son of James C. McKinley, a retired professor and former editor of New Letters magazine, and Mary Ann McKinley.

Jesse McKinley, one of McKinley's brothers, is the San Francisco bureau chief of the Times. His sister, Molly McKinley, is a video and television editor in New York. His youngest brother, Gabriel, is a playwright and comedian in New York. His wife is Stephanie Smothers; he has two children, Miles, and Phoebe.

McKinley is a 1984 graduate of Cornell University. He began his career in journalism while still in college, working for local radio stations in Ithaca and stringing for the The Syracuse Post Standard. In late 1986, he started at The New York Times as a copyboy, eventually earning a spot on the staff. He covered the police department, city hall and Federal courts in Manhattan, before being named the Nairobi Bureau chief in 1995. In Nairobi, he covered the return of Rwandan refugees after the genocie, the fall of Mobutu and the rise of Laurent Kabila in the former Zaire.

He returned to New York in 1999, working as an investigative journalist in the Sports Department then as a political reporter in Albany. In 2004, he was named Mexico City Bureau chief, a position he held until 2008, when he was tranferred to Houston. Three years later, he was hired as the Times pop music reporter and returned again to New York City.

On March 8, 2011, The New York Times published an article by McKinley on the brutal rape of an eleven-year-old girl in the East Texas town of Cleveland. The story prompted outrage not only because of the crime involved - a gang rape perpetrated by 18 boys and men - but also because of how McKinley framed the piece. That framing included relying heavily on quotes from individuals who blamed the victim, scant attention to reporting details on the boys and men involved, and an overemphasis on the impoverished environment where the assault occurred.

On March 11, 2011, The New York Times' public editor Artur R. Brisbane wrote that he found that the outrage was understandable. He found that the piece lacked critical balance by relying heavily on quotes from individuals who expressed concern for the perpetrators, as well as detailing the victim's appearance. McKinley and The New York Times, Brisbane determined, created an impression that the victim "had it coming". Brisbane never interviewed McKinley, nor his editors, before writing his column.

On March 29, 2011, the times published a second article by McKinley and Erica Goode that delved more deeply into the criminal backgrounds of many of the alleged rapists as well as the family of the victim. The second article left no doubt the girl was the victim of a horrendous crime.