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 Schadenfreude  |
Posted on 05/13/2003 2:58:04 AM PDT by kattracks
“Mr. Raines, you spoke to a convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in 2001, and you specifically mentioned Jayson Blair as an example of the Times spotting and hiring the best and brightest reporters on their way up. You said, 'This campaign has made our staff better and, more importantly, more diverse.' And I wonder now, looking back, if you see this as something of a cautionary tale, that maybe Jayson Blair was given less scrutiny or more of a pass on the corrections to his stories that you had to print because the paper had an interest in cultivating a young, black reporter.”
Raines’ defensive reply: “No, I do not see it as illustrating that point. I see it as illustrating a tragedy for Jayson Blair, that here was a person who under the conditions in which other journalists perform adequately decided to fabricate information and mislead colleagues. And it is--you know, I don't want to demonize Jayson, but this is a tragedy of failure on his part.”
Geez, did they ever hear of asking for a college transcript or copy of a diploma? It's not that difficult!
I've been in journalism my whole career; nobody's ever asked me for a transcript or any proof I ever attended.
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Schadenfreude |
CNNs of Commission, Rapist Demagogues and 9/11
 the movie |
Democratic Party's Problem Transcends Its Anti-War Contingent
The first time Macarena Hernandez crossed paths with Jayson Blair it was 1998 and they were both summer interns at the New York Times - about as close to the centre of the American media universe as it is possible for a college student to get. The affable, boundlessly energetic 21-year-old Blair shone: a year later, he was back at the world's most revered newspaper and rising fast. Hernandez, by contrast, went to work on a small Texan daily, the San Antonio Express-News.
It was in that capacity that she was sent last month to interview a local woman whose soldier son was missing in Iraq. She wrote a tender piece, full of minutely observed details about the woman, Juanita Anguiano: the decor of her living-room, her hand gestures, her way of speaking. So when most of the same details appeared under Blair's name the following week - complete with the dateline of the Texan town where Anguiano lives - Hernandez's editor was outraged, and wrote to the Times to tell them. Blair, now 27, was asked to provide travel expenses to prove that he had travelled to Texas, and couldn't do so. He resigned last week.
How can a person be 21 in the summer of 1998 and 27 in the spring of 2003?
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