[martin_fierro]

...And the hits just keep comin'!

[billb]

"All the news that's fit to print, regardless of whether it's fabricated or appeared elswhere first."

[martin_fierro]

"[The NYT is] more like a government ministry in the way it feels it needs to carry out this investigation," says Kurt Andersen, the veteran media-watcher. "They regard themselves as the great keeper of the flame of truth and accuracy."

How the NYT regards itself, and what it actually is, are two different things.

But like a government ministry's self-investigation, nothing will come of it.

[martin_fierro]

"What he did is on an epic scale," says Alex Jones, a former Times journalist, author of a monumental history of the paper, and now a professor at Harvard University. "But the thing that shocked me was the reaction of people when they read about [themselves] in the New York Times and knew it to be false. Their reaction seemed to be a kind of shrug - 'What do you expect?'" Not one person whom Blair claimed falsely to have interviewed contacted the paper to point it out...."

"The New York Times - Expect The World"tm

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Because Blair is black, the controversy has also rejuvenated a longstanding debate on affirmative action, and whether the Times's commitment to hiring a diverse workforce had ended up overexposing someone who wasn't ready for the big time.

Jesse Jackson must be holed up in his mansion trying to figure out a way to make a few bucks on this affair.

[thegreatbeast]

This piece highlights what caught my eye reading the Times apologia on Sunday: numerous people at the Times had blinders on and refused to see what was right before their eyes.
A simple audit of Blair's expenses would have proved him a charlatan. And he was anxious to get busted- how else to explain him plaigarizing a woman he interned with?
The Times was busy gulping down the KoolAid.

[snopercod]

All this moral outrage in the "journalism community" over this is hilarious.

Everyone knows that reporters are just whores. They write what the customers wants to read, and get paid for doing so.

[ricpic]

Apparently, there are errors and then there are politically correct errors, which aren't exactly errors....sorta......I guess.........

[Diogenesis]

Jayson Blair -- Trained to lie and deceive at the Boston Globe [it is their way].

---

A few of the recent fabricated stories in the Boston Globe include the following:

BOSTON GLOBE IGNORES IRAQI TORTURE CHAMBERS + PRISONERS [4/16/03]

BOSTON GLOBE FABRICATES FRONT-PAGE POLL [4/9/03]

BOSTON GLOBE FABRICATES FRONT-PAGE SLUR AGAINST US MILITARY [4/8/03]

[mewzilla]

No newspaper, as the Times's executive editor, Howell Raines, has been quick to point out, could be designed to catch the most determined fraudster

Gee, Raines, how hard is it to see a big hole in his expense account where travel bills ought to be?

[7thson]

Because Blair is black, the controversy has also rejuvenated a longstanding debate on affirmative action, and whether the Times's commitment to hiring a diverse workforce had ended up overexposing someone who wasn't ready for the big time.

I am going to try to say something here and it may not come off right, so I apologize if I offend people. Two things. The first one, the first four words of the above paragraph. I realize this is a British paper but my question is what is it – is it black or African-American? Myself, I refuse to use the AA term when I am talking about an American who is black. Just as I am not Irish-American, or Scottish-American, or English-American, I know I will not be addressed as such and I refuse to address myself as a hyphenated American. But the larger question, is this part of the problem. When we attach a importance to an American with a hyphen, are we not making a false importance to that group of people. And then, if this group feels important, does it go as far as feeling that they should be treated special, treated different, given more breaks, etc. Does this go into Balkanizing America, bringing all of us to view others with resentment and envy?

Second thing. If I apply for a job with a small business, let’s say an auto mechanic shop, I could possibly get by with false references and past jobs. They may or may not call to check on me. But how difficult is it for an organization as large as NYT to check out whether someone graduated from a college? This is just mind-numbing. I can understand hiring for diversity. I can understand if you want to hire a black reporter. But is the NYT saying that five years ago when they hired this clown that not another black, graduating from a journalism school, applied to work at the Times? If you want to hire a black reporter, why not get a bunch of applications from black graduates, and then hire the best one?

A deft bit of database searching by the Weekly Standard magazine showed that Blair's 50 corrections worked out at 6.9% of his stories - a rather better rate than the paper's veteran commentator RW Apple (14.1%) or Washington bureau reporter Adam Clymer (9%). Among his Times colleagues, Blair had a reputation as a friendly face who would compliment people regularly on their articles, and often claimed access to important gossip or documents involving senior executives.

I like this paragraph. So Apple and Clymer have higher correction rates. Well, maybe they are making stuff up also. Why not check these guys out and see if they are where they say they are. The last bit – reading between the lines, this guy Blair was a suck up who kissed arse to get where he got. I also consider it just irony that the part that did him in was ripping off a reporter he worked with as an intern. Not very bright!

[PBRSTREETGANG]

"All The News That Fits,We Print"

[Teacher317]

I liked John Stewart's sarcastic line on Comedy Central. He interviewed an NYT bigwig who said that they couldn't possibly prevent someone from passing false stories. John's response was, "yeah, you'd need, like, a whole team of fact-checking people, called, um, called, er, what are those people called, who investigate and report in journalism?"

[syriacus]

A deft bit of database searching by the Weekly Standard magazine showed that Blair's 50 corrections worked out at 6.9% of his stories - a rather better rate than the paper's veteran commentator RW Apple (14.1%)

Readers expect reporters to get their facts straight.

Readers expect less accuracy from "commentators," just as they expect less accuracy from politicians. They know to be skeptical about what they hear from those two sources.

(Of course, the Times often confuses reporting with editorializing, but that's another story...)

By the way, will the Times be placing little asterisks next to the mistakes in Blair's articles that are archived?

Children who are doing research for school papers, and come across Blair's archived articles should be alerted to fudged facts.

[Phrostie]

What reason do I have to believe anything I read in the Times?

[NYCVirago]

But at the Times's newsroom on West 43rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, he impressed the upper echelons so much they asked him back in June 1999, on the assumption - wrong, as it turned out - that he had graduated from his university.

Geez, did they ever hear of asking for a college transcript or copy of a diploma? It's not that difficult!

[Timesink]

Schadenfreude

This is the New York Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.

[Rocky]

I love hearing Clymer's name mentioned in the same breath with Blair's.

[Mia T]

Q ERTY8^BUMP

 

CNNs of Commission, Rapist Demagogues and 9/11

the movie

The REAL "Living History" -- clintoplasmodial slime

Personal Agitprop-and-Money-Laundering Machine, Cozy-clintonoid-Interviews-of-the-Colmes-Kind-Scheme
Bury REAL "Living History"

Democratic Party's Problem Transcends Its Anti-War Contingent