The Lies Of Jayson Blair

[Fletch]

I'm not gonna post the article on the fraud committed by Jayson Blair at the New York Times (it's 10 pages long). But this is terrible. I am sad to say that this may set diversity in the news media (what little diverstity there is) back a loooooooooooooooong time. graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

[mhd]

fraud and plagiarism in this profession knows no ethnic boundaries. there have been several recent scandals involving other writers

[Leslie]

I read this yesterday. graemlins/jpshakehead.gif No words....

[Fletch]

Originally posted by mhd:
fraud and plagiarism in this profession knows no ethnic boundaries. there have been several recent scandals involving other writers Absolutely correct, but the fact that the one caught now is a Brotha. They're gonna hang this cat out to dry. The Times themselves put out a 10 page story. I do want to see who (how many) in the editorial department gets the ax over this. graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

[mhd]

Originally posted by einnod23:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mhd:
fraud and plagiarism in this profession knows no ethnic boundaries. there have been several recent scandals involving other writers Absolutely correct, but the fact that the one caught now is a Brotha. They're gonna hang this cat out to dry. The Times themselves put out a 10 page story. I do want to see who (how many) in the editorial department gets the ax over this. graemlins/jpshakehead.gif </font>[/QUOTE]and he should be hung out to dry, but this should not have an adverse impact on the woeful lack of minorities in newsrooms across the country.

[Bold Soul]

Sounds to me that the New York Times gave him quite a few opportunities to clean up his act and keep his job. He was reassigned a couple of times instead of fired - and while he was on probation, he was assigned to cover the biggest story in the nation. Someone liked him -and how many strikes can a guy get at bat?

This cat has a pathological predisposition to shooting himself in the foot. There is a clinical term for it, though it escapes me at the time.

One black person representing all black people is a thing of the past. Too bad people don't want to let it go.

[Leslie]

Originally posted by Bold Soul:
Sounds to me that the New York Times gave him quite a few opportunities to clean up his act and keep his job. He was reassigned a couple of times instead of fired - and while he was on probation, he was assigned to cover the biggest story in the nation. Someone liked him -and how many strikes can a guy get at bat?

This cat has a pathological predisposition to shooting himself in the foot. There is a clinical term for it, though it escapes me at the time.

One black person representing all black people is a thing of the past. Too bad people don't want to let it go. Bold Soul this is a fair assessment of what went on, and I must agree with your last statement. WE need to get away from that line of thinking as a people if we want others to do the same.

The clinical term is "Dumb Ass".

[matthew]

A journalist? Making things up?

surely not...

[Bold Soul]

Originally posted by Leslie:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bold Soul:
Sounds to me that the New York Times gave him quite a few opportunities to clean up his act and keep his job. He was reassigned a couple of times instead of fired - and while he was on probation, he was assigned to cover the biggest story in the nation. Someone liked him -and how many strikes can a guy get at bat?

This cat has a pathological predisposition to shooting himself in the foot. There is a clinical term for it, though it escapes me at the time.

One black person representing all black people is a thing of the past. Too bad people don't want to let it go. Bold Soul this is a fair assessment of what went on, and I must agree with your last statement. WE need to get away from that line of thinking as a people if we want others to do the same.

The clinical term is "Dumb Ass". </font>[/QUOTE]Well, I might be speaking out of turn, but if the Editor of Newsweek and the Chairman of AOL Time Warner don't represent all African-Americans in journalism, neither does this "brotha".

The difference between the old slavery and the new: people now shackle themselves...with their thinking.

[Fletch]

Originally posted by mhd:
[QUOTE]
[qb] [QUOTE]this should not have an adverse impact on the woeful lack of minorities in newsrooms across the country. As much as I would love to agree with you, I think it will. I believe that there was a black medical student at Cal-Davis in the mid 70s, (Bakke thought he was more qualified than the brotha). Wasn't the brotha stripped of his med licence for malpractice? The foes of affirmative action used this as ammunition. And because of the chances Blair got, foes of affirmative action will use this as ammunition as well.

And, unfortunately, there are still folks in decision making places who still think that "they're all like Jayson Blair". Sad, but true. graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

[ May 12, 2003, 12:03 PM: Message edited by: einnod23 ]

[corwin]

Originally posted by matthew:
A journalist? Making things up?

surely not... graemlins/grinyes.gif

That this was a front page story in the Sunday Times seemed odd to me. Are Blair's trangressions unprecedented? Perhaps I'm missing something.

My favorite paragraph from the article? "Mr. Blair, who has resigned from the paper, was a reporter at The Times for nearly four years, and he was prolific. Spot checks of the more than 600 articles he wrote before October have found other apparent fabrications, and that inquiry continues."

600 articles...over a five year career.... and this deception was just recently revealed? Flan and Ouisa Kittridge were faster.

[Fletch]

Question to any journalists on this board:

Any of y'all going to the NABJ convention in Dallas this August? I wonder how hot this topic's gonna be. Have fun, y'all. Peace.

[RX]

what "personal issues" could be the source of his "biting"? that's what i didn't understand when i heard it...it just made it a bit worse than it already was...i mean, there he was, cheesing on the picture they had on the news, while being accused of this travesty because he had "personal issues"...

this is very, very sad...

[mhd]

Originally posted by einnod23:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mhd:


[qb] [QUOTE]this should not have an adverse impact on the woeful lack of minorities in newsrooms across the country. As much as I would love to agree with you, I think it will. I believe that there was a black medical student at Cal-Davis in the mid 70s, (Bakke thought he was more qualified than the brotha). Wasn't the brotha stripped of his med licence for malpractice? The foes of affirmative action used this as ammunition. And because of the chances Blair got, foes of affirmative action will use this as ammunition as well.

And, unfortunately, there are still folks in decision making places who still think that "they're all like Jayson Blair". Sad, but true. graemlins/jpshakehead.gif </font>honestly, i never heard that about a medical student at UC Davis, and i have never heard that used in an argument about affirmative action, and i have had a ton of arguments on this topic.

if people use this as ammunition, its only because we allow it. the real question is, how can we expect them to move beyond that kind of thinking if we can't?

but what about Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe? or Bill Bennet's hypocrisy? or bill o'reilly, or hannity and whatever? Blair belongs in this group.

[Fletch]

Originally posted by mhd:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by einnod23:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mhd:


[qb]
this should not have an adverse impact on the woeful lack of minorities in newsrooms across the country. As much as I would love to agree with you, I think it will. I believe that there was a black medical student at Cal-Davis in the mid 70s, (Bakke thought he was more qualified than the brotha). Wasn't the brotha stripped of his med licence for malpractice? The foes of affirmative action used this as ammunition. And because of the chances Blair got, foes of affirmative action will use this as ammunition as well.

And, unfortunately, there are still folks in decision making places who still think that "they're all like Jayson Blair". Sad, but true. graemlins/jpshakehead.gif </font>honestly, i never heard that about a medical student at UC Davis, and i have never heard that used in an argument about affirmative action, and i have had a ton of arguments on this topic.

if people use this as ammunition, its only because we allow it. the real question is, how can we expect them to move beyond that kind of thinking if we can't?

but what about Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe? or Bill Bennet's hypocrisy? or bill o'reilly, or hannity and whatever? Blair belongs in this group. </font>Patrick Chavis is the name of the affirmative action student at Cal-Davis in the mid 70s. Plenty of anti-affirmative action articles with his name on it.

You're second paragraph is correct.

And you are right about Bob Ryan, Bill Bennett and Bill O'Reilly. It seems that their supporters (a whole lot of very conservative supporters) have a forgiving heart with their own (you should have seen the pro-Bennett callers on C-SPAN the other day). Peace.

[Bold Soul]

1970 -2003 is thirty-three years.

The man is an individual, and anyone with an ounce of reason couldn't honestly make that association. That's slave thinking - how the master will punish all for the failings of one.

One must resist the urge to make such generalizations. It isn't healthy.

[ May 12, 2003, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: Bold Soul ]

[Bold Soul]

Whoa - just listened to NPR's "All Things Considered "on my car radio and one of the topics discussed with Robert Seigel (I can't remember the guest, but it was a professor of Journalism at a fairly prestigous University), and there is talk (somewhere) that Jayson Blair was a diversity candidate and that this smacks in the face of diversity. The Professor, himself an African-American, found it absurd.

Ugh - all the way around.

[Fletch]

Sorry for any misunderstanding. I am NOT having pity for this guy, even though I do believe he does need help.

I will say this: For every Jayson Blair, there is Mike Wilbon, Bryan Burwell, Ralph Wiley, the late Sam Lacy and plenty of others who are/were speaking the truth. Peace.

[12th house]

article on jayson blair from media insider's perspective (http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a275.asp)

ugh. mad1.gif

[Bold Soul]

Originally posted by 12th house:
article on jayson blair from media insider's perspective (http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a275.asp)

ugh. mad1.gif Yea - William McGowan is really betraying himself. How resentful can one journalist be?

That Blair was given many opportunities to succeed could be less about diversity and more about the difficulty in firing people legally in the US.

Illogical construals, if you ask me.

[Cheddar]

Why all the outrage??...been saying that this is happening for a while now. You know why you should really be afraid!!

[Leslie]

Originally posted by 12th house:
article on jayson blair from media insider's perspective (http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a275.asp)

ugh. mad1.gif graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

I'm sure he'ss show up on Fox sometime in the very near future....

[12th house]

Blair will be made an example of by people like McGowan, who still feel they have something to prove about how the inclusion of minorities has some connection to lowered standards, etc. His claims that this would not happen to a white reporter are, I believe, patently rediculous. All one needs to do is look at the Bush presidency to get some perspective on a claim like that.

[Alanda Marquette from DiscoLadyLand]

Just when we were getting into the big house, him den mussed it up for all us negras!! Massah ain't gonna let us colored folk do nuthin no mo, na we's gotta go an'fen fo owr selfs.

Come on, I know people are not really focusing on the fact that he is black. It's pretty sad that some of us cannot go on our own merit without making our color hinder our abilities. He just screwed up and heads are going to roll. I feel for him, He will of course have to work for the National Inquirer graemlins/rofl.gif Let's move on without turning this into a radical movement.

[mhd]

"I think that Blair was coddled, he was indulged, editors knew he was a walking journalistic train wreck, and because of careerist anxieties tied to diversity, and to blatant double standards in terms of the Times's commitment to diversity, wanting to promote this great reporter of color, this golden boy, I think that they really left themselves open to horrible, horrible deceit, manipulation, and fraud.

But can't these things have just as easily happened if it was a white reporter who was pathologically committed to…
It wouldn't have lasted as long. In the Times's post-mortem, which was excruciatingly and embarrassingly detailed yet still reflects denial over diversity, there are a couple of quotes—there's one from Jonathan Landman, who is the metro editor and was Blair's boss for a couple of years. And when Blair got promoted to full-time reporter from probationary reporter, Landman didn't express his misgivings, and he said he didn't express them principally because the publisher and the executive editor had shown their commitment to diversity and that Blair's promotion was tied to that. And there were other instances, too, where you had editors who clearly wanted him to succeed and therefore didn't speak out or share information among themselves. And I'll make the statement: I don't think a white reporter who worked at the Times, a 27-year-old white reporter, male or female, who worked at the Times for four years who had that long a record of inaccuracy, shady, dodgy behavior, and arrogant confrontations with administrators, that reporter would not have been able to keep a job at the Times, much less get promoted. And be covering sensitive stories like the sniper case."

let's keep it real, this shit is true. let's also keep in mind that Blair lied, cheated, manipulated, committed fraud and plagiarism. In other words he was unqualified for his position. in their admirable efforts to promote diversity, the NYT allowed themselves to be embarassed by this clown. they lowered their standards for this very young and inexperienced idiot.

[Fletch]

Originally posted by mhd:
"I think that Blair was coddled, he was indulged, editors knew he was a walking journalistic train wreck, and because of careerist anxieties tied to diversity, and to blatant double standards in terms of the Times's commitment to diversity, wanting to promote this great reporter of color, this golden boy, I think that they really left themselves open to horrible, horrible deceit, manipulation, and fraud.

But can't these things have just as easily happened if it was a white reporter who was pathologically committed to…
It wouldn't have lasted as long. In the Times's post-mortem, which was excruciatingly and embarrassingly detailed yet still reflects denial over diversity, there are a couple of quotes—there's one from Jonathan Landman, who is the metro editor and was Blair's boss for a couple of years. And when Blair got promoted to full-time reporter from probationary reporter, Landman didn't express his misgivings, and he said he didn't express them principally because the publisher and the executive editor had shown their commitment to diversity and that Blair's promotion was tied to that. And there were other instances, too, where you had editors who clearly wanted him to succeed and therefore didn't speak out or share information among themselves. And I'll make the statement: I don't think a white reporter who worked at the Times, a 27-year-old white reporter, male or female, who worked at the Times for four years who had that long a record of inaccuracy, shady, dodgy behavior, and arrogant confrontations with administrators, that reporter would not have been able to keep a job at the Times, much less get promoted. And be covering sensitive stories like the sniper case."

let's keep it real, this shit is true. let's also keep in mind that Blair lied, cheated, manipulated, committed fraud and plagiarism. In other words he was unqualified for his position. in their admirable efforts to promote diversity, the NYT allowed themselves to be embarassed by this clown. they lowered their standards for this very young and inexperienced idiot. And how many editors and managers at the Times will be fired for the horrible lack of management of this situation? I have a feeling it's gonna be a big fat ZERO! Peace.

[RX]

Originally posted by DiscoLady:

Come on, I know people are not really focusing on the fact that he is black. ah, lady...you know we must focus all of our energies on the "black thing"...we gotta dig really, really deep into some shyt that has nothing to do with nothing...remember the snipers in d.c.?

[mhd]

Originally posted by einnod23:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mhd:
"I think that Blair was coddled, he was indulged, editors knew he was a walking journalistic train wreck, and because of careerist anxieties tied to diversity, and to blatant double standards in terms of the Times's commitment to diversity, wanting to promote this great reporter of color, this golden boy, I think that they really left themselves open to horrible, horrible deceit, manipulation, and fraud.

But can't these things have just as easily happened if it was a white reporter who was pathologically committed to…
It wouldn't have lasted as long. In the Times's post-mortem, which was excruciatingly and embarrassingly detailed yet still reflects denial over diversity, there are a couple of quotes—there's one from Jonathan Landman, who is the metro editor and was Blair's boss for a couple of years. And when Blair got promoted to full-time reporter from probationary reporter, Landman didn't express his misgivings, and he said he didn't express them principally because the publisher and the executive editor had shown their commitment to diversity and that Blair's promotion was tied to that. And there were other instances, too, where you had editors who clearly wanted him to succeed and therefore didn't speak out or share information among themselves. And I'll make the statement: I don't think a white reporter who worked at the Times, a 27-year-old white reporter, male or female, who worked at the Times for four years who had that long a record of inaccuracy, shady, dodgy behavior, and arrogant confrontations with administrators, that reporter would not have been able to keep a job at the Times, much less get promoted. And be covering sensitive stories like the sniper case."

let's keep it real, this shit is true. let's also keep in mind that Blair lied, cheated, manipulated, committed fraud and plagiarism. In other words he was unqualified for his position. in their admirable efforts to promote diversity, the NYT allowed themselves to be embarassed by this clown. they lowered their standards for this very young and inexperienced idiot. And how many editors and managers at the Times will be fired for the horrible lack of management of this situation? I have a feeling it's gonna be a big fat ZERO! Peace. </font>[/QUOTE]kinda reminds me of Sam Lacy and Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson was far from being the best player in the Negro Leagues, in fact a lot of the players resented him being the "first". fact is, so much thought went in to who could handle the situation rather than who was most talented. talent was never an issue, never has been. Branch Rickey and Sam Lacy determined that Jackie would be able to withstand the pressure. Jayson Blair could not. the way he coped was to break all the rules, when he should have been fired he was promoted.

[Leslie]

mhd speaking of which:
May 12, 2003
Sam Lacy, Who Fought Racism as Sportswriter, Dies at 99
By FRANK LITSKY


am Lacy, a sports reporter for black newspapers for almost 70 years who struggled with the segregation and racial intolerance experienced by the black athletes he covered, died last Thursday morning at a hospital in Washington. He was 99.

Since 1943, he had been the sports editor and columnist for the Afro-American Newspapers, a group of weeklies based in Baltimore.

Mr. Lacy chronicled Jackie Robinson's debut in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers as major league baseball's first black player, and for much of Robinson's first three seasons he and Mr. Lacy stayed in the same black hotels and ate together in black restaurants.

Early in his career, Mr. Lacy was barred from many baseball and football press boxes because of his color. When that happened in several cities during spring training when Robinson was playing for the Dodgers, Branch Rickey, the Dodgers' general manager, told Mr. Lacy he could report from the Dodgers' dugout.

Once, when Mr. Lacy was barred from a New Orleans baseball press box, he took a chair and sat on the press box roof and was soon joined by several white sportswriters from New York.

In addition to Robinson, Mr. Lacy was close to Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Arthur Ashe and other prominent black athletes, but never hesitated to criticize them.

In his six decades at the Afro-American Newspapers, Mr. Lacy became a mentor and a resource to many African-American journalists who drew from his experiences in overcoming segregation.

Samuel Harold Lacy was a short, wiry man with the sharp features of his mother, a Shinnecock Indian. He was born on Oct. 23, 1903, in Mystic, Conn. He grew up in Washington, five blocks from Griffith Stadium, the home of the old Washington Senators baseball team. As a youngster, he shagged balls in the outfield during batting practice, ran errands for players and worked as a vendor in the stands. He watched many games, some with his father, but only from the "colored-only" section in right field.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in education from Howard University, he did sports commentary on television and radio and played, managed and coached in semipro baseball and basketball.

He started working full time in 1930 for The Washington Tribune and became the managing editor and sports editor. He also worked for The Chicago Defender as assistant national editor.

Mr. Lacy is survived by his son, Samuel H. (Tim) Jr. of Columbia, Md.; a daughter, Michaelyn Harris of New York City; and four grandchildren. His wife, Barbara, died in 1969.

In 1948, he became the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. In 1997, the day before he turned 94, he was named winner of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing. That placed him in the writers and broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Mr. Lacy was a strong proponent of integrating the major leagues, and in 1940 he tried unsuccessfully to meet with baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, to push his cause. Some blacks criticized Mr. Lacy for his campaign, saying integration would destroy the Negro Leagues (it did).

He responded, "The Negro Leagues were an institution, but they were the very thing we wanted to get rid of because they were a symbol of segregation."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top

[mhd]

thanks Les, glad to see someone at the nyt is doing their job. i've read about 6 or 7 articles on Lacy's passing but this one and Mike Wilbon's were the best. Funny, Lacy played a major role in literally changing american society and culture, yet he did not appear on the cover of anything. Jayson Blair could have used a Sam Lacy in his life.

[Bold Soul]

Originally posted by mhd:
Jayson Blair could have used a Sam Lacy in his life. I find this to be a very insightful and compassionate observation.

[Alanda Marquette from DiscoLadyLand]

Originally posted by Ms Rickey X:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by DiscoLady:

Come on, I know people are not really focusing on the fact that he is black. ah, lady...you know we must focus all of our energies on the "black thing"...we gotta dig really, really deep into some shyt that has nothing to do with nothing...remember the snipers in d.c.? </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, I remember quite well and they were wrong too. Let's not forget stupidity don't have color.

[Alanda Marquette from DiscoLadyLand]

Originally posted by mhd:
thanks Les, glad to see someone at the nyt is doing their job. i've read about 6 or 7 articles on Lacy's passing but this one and Mike Wilbon's were the best. Funny, Lacy played a major role in literally changing american society and culture, yet he did not appear on the cover of anything. Jayson Blair could have used a Sam Lacy in his life. Thank you, He broke barriers and stood for his. He did not let his color or other people's stupidity get in the way of his accomplishments.

He had faith in what he did, not the people that he was writing for.

[Fletch]

Originally posted by mhd:
thanks Les, glad to see someone at the nyt is doing their job. i've read about 6 or 7 articles on Lacy's passing but this one and Mike Wilbon's were the best. Funny, Lacy played a major role in literally changing american society and culture, yet he did not appear on the cover of anything. Jayson Blair could have used a Sam Lacy in his life. Check out Ralph Wiley's piece on Lacy. Another good one. Peace.

[Fletch]

Originally posted by mhd:
[/qb][QUOTE]kinda reminds me of Sam Lacy and Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson was far from being the best player in the Negro Leagues, in fact a lot of the players resented him being the "first". fact is, so much thought went in to who could handle the situation rather than who was most talented. talent was never an issue, never has been. Branch Rickey and Sam Lacy determined that Jackie would be able to withstand the pressure. Jayson Blair could not. the way he coped was to break all the rules, when he should have been fired he was promoted. [/QB]Branch Rickey: The most important executive in the history of Corporate America. Some of the things he pioneered:
1) Training grounds (the farm system)
2) The psychological exam (racial slur tests to Jackie)
3) employee safety (batting helmets)
4) Saw the future in diversity (Built the late 40s-mid 50s Dodgers and '60 Pirates on it).

Oh, yeah, Rickey had enough sense to know that picking the most qualified for the job (black ballplayer) was NOT going to be on talent alone. Peace.

[ May 13, 2003, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: einnod23 ]

[Leslie]

Some African American journalists weigh in on the subject...

http://blackamericaweb.com/index.cfm?ARTICLEID=96156&CATID=5

Black columnists across the country react to Blair saga
05/14/2003 01:37 PM EDT


BlackAmericaWeb.com News Services

There is no story in journalism circles that is being discussed more than the "journalistic fraud" committed by former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair.

The following are links to commentaries written by black columnist from across the country.

Terry M. Neal, Washington Post

Diversity had nothing to do with reporter’s deceit

The plagiarism and deceit of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is an affront to journalism. He disgraced an honorable profession that already suffers a credibility problem. His actions have distressed the great many journalists who go to pains every day to uphold the lofty ideals of their chosen craft. Make no mistake: Blair’s editors fell asleep at the switch, allowing him to abuse his authority and responsibility. Read more

Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Fabrications by anyone tarnish journalism

There was once a black reporter named Janet Cooke who became a scourge for any young African-American trying to break into journalism.

These days, it's Jayson Blair. But the effect will likely be the same.

Cooke was The Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for a series she made up about an 8-year-old heroin addict. Read more

Acel Moore, Philadelphia Inquirer

The fault of a man, not of a race

I write this as a preemptive strike against anyone who either implies or flat-out states that the dishonesties and plagiarisms of former New York Times writer Jayson Blair somehow reflect badly on other African American journalists or on the effort to promote diversity in the newsroom.

Blair, 27, happens to be African American and had been a reporter for four years. Last October, he was moved from the paper's metropolitan desk to the national desk, one of the prize assignments at the newspaper. Read more

Robert L. Jamieson Jr., Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Brame and Blair: 2 sides of same coin

Journalist Jayson Blair could be considered a poster child for political correctness run amok, a flesh-and-blood symbol for what happens when the best intentions blind people from seeing the warning signs.

And Blair has good company here in Western Washington, but more about that later.

It was hard to miss the 14,000-word mea culpa published about Blair in The New York Times Sunday. After a remarkable in-house investigation, the paper found the writings of its 27-year-old African American wunderkind to be riddled with errors, fabrications and plagiarisms. Read more

DeWayne Wickham, USA Today

Take pride in black journalist

The more I read about Jayson Blair, the more I think about Sam Lacy. Lacy's 73 years of journalistic excellence, not Blair's five years of unethical behavior, should be the measure of the value of racial diversity in the newsrooms of this nation.

Blair's relatively brief journalism career imploded earlier this month amid reports that he fabricated and plagiarized his way onto the national reporting staff of the venerable New York Times. He has been the subject of a lot of media coverage in the past week.

Read more
E. R. Ship, New York Daily News

...No, blame it on old boys' network

An old boys' system got Jayson Blair to the highest ranks of The New York Times' national reporting staff. Now it's affirmative action that's being blamed for his downfall.

Let's get it right. Blair lost his job when it became apparent that he had "committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud," as The Times revealed in its unprecedented inquiry into Blair's - and its own - failures. He snookered not only readers, but also Times editors too tied into the old boys' network or too politically correct to call this spade a spade. Read more

Courtland Milloy, Washington Post

Sympathy for would-be media star

I met Jayson Blair 10 years ago, when he was a 17-year-old student at Centreville High in Fairfax County and a member of a group called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

He and other young people were selling cookies at a bake sale on a Saturday morning in May to raise money for a classmate who needed medical help. "My feeling is that I will work as hard as I can and let God take care of the rest," Blair told me back then.

Read more
Stan Simpson, Hartford Courant

The web of a liar yields infamy

You're getting ready to ask - Lord knows, everyone else has - so here's my two cents on Jayson Blair:

If this conniving, fabricating, plagiarizing, disgraced former New York Times reporter plays his 15 minutes of infamy just right, he can make his first million by the time he's 30.

Read more
Loretta Green, San Jose Mercury News

Lying-reporter case is about truth, not race

I want to tell him that there are thousands of Americans out here without jobs who are desperate to have a paycheck to feed their families.

I want to tell him that there are thousands of people like me who used to be turned away from jobs on newspapers because of the color of their skin or the fact of their gender. Read more


BlackAmericaWeb.com Staff


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