Posted on 05/08/2003 3:13:36 AM PDT by Liz
Parents of Two Other Soldiers, Attorney in Sniper Case Say They Never Spoke to Blair
PHOTO: Michael Arif, an attorney for sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo, said he never spoke with Jayson Blair.
Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter who resigned last week after plagiarizing a story about a woman whose son died in Iraq, never talked to two other soldiers' parents he quoted in separate articles, the parents said in interviews this week.
The Rev. Tandy Sloan, an associate minister at a Cleveland church whose son was killed in Iraq, said he did not meet or speak to Blair, despite the fact that the reporter published his comments and described him at a church service.
"The article he wrote was totally erroneous," Sloan said. "He hadn't talked to me. He fabricated the whole story, is basically what he did."
Gregory Lynch, the father of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the former POW who was rescued by U.S. forces, said Blair "was never at my house and never spoke to me."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
There are lots of black journalism graduates rattling around, and this kid's rise in his chosen profession was meteoric-how many other cub reporters in their internship +3 year have front page bylines and feature stories at the New York Timeslike this guy, now or in history?
It may simply be a case that he was good at giving Mr. Charlie what he wanted, fake stories with a leftist spin and a black face (paging Harry Belafonte to check out who gets to go into the master's house)-but this extraordinary career progress does suggest favoritism of some other kind.
Was he someone's relative?
Liar!!!
Every newspaper and magazine employs a team of factcheckers! A good friend of mine used to this full time for Conde Nast.
As someone who's pretty much split his life between West Virginia and Manhattan, I have to say this article, to me, just REEKS of two patrician snots from New York City taking the redeye out to "Yahoo Land" to soak up the "local color." Am I reading too much into this?So NYAH NYAH Jayson, I was right about you!
However, more importantly: Jayson was one of TWO authors of that article, the other being one Douglas Jehl. The question thus needs to be asked: What did Jehl know, and when did he know it? Kurtz's article doesn't mention Jehl at all.
But did you indicate as much to the NYT?
What could I have said to them, "Your reporters are a--holes?" Hearing that from the Unwashed Public is what gets these pseudoreporters raises, not pink slips.
That's the accurate story, too. He was hired under a minority-internship program that gave jobs at the nation's most prestigious paper to kids not even out of college (as long as they're minorities); and he was kept on even though his ineptitude forced the paper to issue 50 corrections; somethign that would have gotten a white male reporter canned quicker than you can say clymer.
In a sense Blair's the victim of affirmative action, because in their desperation to "diversify" their newsroom, the Times gave heavy responsibilities to somebody who never learned the ropes by working first at smaller papers, the way white folk have to.
The NYT can presumably take its pick from every black journalism major in the country, and, as has been pointed out, college students with no experience, black or white, don't usually get a byline on the front page of the NYT after a year.
That's not true. They have an internship program for minority students that takes them while they're in college - - - www.kausfiles.com has reported on it. You're right that white kids in college wouldn't get this opportunity to have a NYT byline , but you're wrong if you think Blair is the only black kid who gets it
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