The book pretends to be a mea culpa, but ends up spewing imaginary blame in all directions.
"This is everybody's fault but my own."
Owl_Eagle
" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"
Posted on 03/02/2004 7:41:38 AM PST by Hillary's Lovely Legs
Jayson Blair's book about his tumultuous tenure at The New York Times hits bookstores this week, but his former bosses already are criticizing it.
Burning Down My Master's House (New Millennium) "does not merit much attention," said a memo to staffers last week by executive editor Bill Keller and managing editors Jill Abramson and Bill Geddes.
"The author is an admitted fabricator. (Chapter One begins, 'I lied and I lied - and then I lied some more.') 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."
New Millennium chief Michael Viner says Keller's comments appear to be the start of a "smear campaign by The New York Times against Blair and his book."
In the book, excerpts of which appeared in Friday's Times and New York's Daily News, Blair blames dozens of fabricated or plagiarized stories on alcohol and drugs and says he was an undiagnosed manic-depressive.
"I lied about a plane flight I never took, about sleeping in a car I never rented, about a landmark on a highway I had never been on," he writes. "I lied about a guy who helped me at a gas station that I found on the Internet and about crossing railroad tracks I only knew existed because of aerial photographs in my private collection."
The Blair scandal last spring, which led to the resignation of executive editor Howell Raines and deputy Gerald Boyd, was "deeply painful to the Times and its staff," Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said Friday. "In the days and weeks that followed, we completed a comprehensive examination of our journalistic and newsroom practices. ... As a result, we have changed many news policies and strengthened our hiring, training and development practices."
Blair kicks off a media tour Friday on NBC's Dateline, followed by a Today interview March 8. He has declined all interviews until those appearances.
It's the ultimate excuse.
"Excuuuuuuse ME!"
The book pretends to be a mea culpa, but ends up spewing imaginary blame in all directions.
"This is everybody's fault but my own."
Owl_Eagle
" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"
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