Posted on 02/27/2004 4:44:42 PM PST by presidio9
He's back ... and blaring. Jayson Blair, whose serial fabrications and deceit rocked The New York Times last year, revisits the whole sad story in a 300-page memoir about drug use, mental instability and hard times at the paper.
In "Burning Down My Masters' House," obtained by the Daily News before it goes on sale next week, the ex-reporter offers his own distorted look at the scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of The Times' two top editors.
Blair - at times self-pitying, at times self-righteous - goes into greater, often lurid detail about how he came unhinged and was able to slip a host of untruths past his editors into print.
He was ready to hang himself with his belt the night before he resigned his job, but stopped himself, he writes, when he realized he had been sober for more than a year and had found love with a Times colleague.
"No matter how bad this gets," he recalls thinking at the time, "your life, regardless of what any outsider may think, is better."
Blair recalls longtime abuse of alcohol and cocaine, including giving and receiving sex for drugs, before being diagnosed with manic depression.
In college, "I would start my mornings with a glass of scotch ... and end my day with a glass by my side, sitting in bed, still drinking."
He describes using costly amounts of cocaine while a Times staffer, saying, "I was tired of having to buy bottles of nose spray before heading into the office in the morning."
He adds, "I was not ready to give up cocaine though. ... After all, some of my best stories were inspired by drug-fueled writing."
Blair says The Times "was a cutthroat culture that leaves no rivals standing."
His memoir was read at The Times after a staffer was able to buy it from an online book dealer, according to Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis.
"We were surprised when the copy arrived, but we had made no special arrangement to get it early," Mathis said.
Executive editor Bill Keller and his two managing editors then braced their troops for its release.
The book "does not merit much attention," they said in a recent staff memo. "The author is an admitted fabricator."
They added, "The book pretends to be a mea culpa, but ends up spewing imaginary blame in all directions. We don't intend to respond to Jayson or his book."
Some former colleagues identified as friends may cringe on seeing themselves included in certain silly episodes.
Assistant managing editor Jonathan Landman, a former superior who was concerned about errors in Blair stories and is now criticized in the book, declined to comment yesterday.
Weekend national editor Jerry Gray, whom Blair describes as a Times mentor, said he had not had the time "or the persuasion" to read a copy available to him.
"I bear him no ill will," Gray added. "As you can imagine, it's the talk of the newsroom."
Jayson's horror show
"I admit, as an employee, I was transforming from eager-to-please to a Grade A nightmare."
There were times when drugs "loosened myself enough to make advances on women, and there were other less memorable moments where I performed, or received, a sexual favor for drugs. When I was on the performing end, it was usually implicit that it was for drugs."
"Zuza [my girlfriend] took pictures of me prancing around the newsroom wearing a Persian head wrap that covered my face, Kermit the Frog on my shoulders and a giant fake fur coat. I did a full tour de newsroom in this peculiar uniform. It is hard to know what I was feeling, other than it was exhilarating to shock everyone. Perhaps I was crying out for attention."
Perhaps you were lying through your teeth and no one at the politically correct Slime had the balls to question your fantasies.
Oh, the irony of hypocrisy is just so rich! Just for them to see themselves once, ONCE, as they truly are.
The Grey Lady just flashed a boob at us with this one. And it wasn't pretty.
That's how I'd go.
OTOH, I can pretty much sum up the book in a sentence:
"I didn't do anything wrong, but if I did, it was due to the booze, drugs and racism, and that wasn't my fault, either."
........could make a bundle, gets lots of media facetime, and become famous, by writing a book. "Man, I'll clean up," Blair thought to himself, "And I can buy even more drugs with all those royalties."
At what point does somebody notice that this guy has a problem? Or, is that standard dress-code at the NYT? Business casual Huggy Bear??
On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/
During the impeachment wars, one of the worst smears the president's men could think of would be to accuse the "enemy of the week" of trying to secure "a book deal". It was a way of implying that the enemy was a prostitute who was sullying the reputation of the Blameless Sink Emperor for money.
I don't remember a whole lot of conservative "enemies of the week" actually getting "a book deal", but here comes Jayson Blair, and he's got his book deal, now doesn't he? ;-)
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