NY TIMES-BLAIR FRAUD FALLOUT AP Corrects Sniper Shootings Story

Associated Press ^ | 5/14/03 | Associated Press

[Liz]

Two stories transmitted by The Associated Press in December about the Washington-area sniper case contained material from New York Times reporter Jayson Blair that the newspaper since has called into question.

A Times investigation found that Blair "committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud," including widespread fabrication.

A Dec. 22 story quoted an anonymous law enforcement source as telling the Times that evidence indicated John Lee Malvo was the triggerman in most if not all of the shootings.

The story included the assertion that the evidence pointing to Malvo included saliva found on a grape stem near one of the shootings and a videotape showing a person who appeared to be fellow suspect John Allen Muhammad in the driver's seat of the pair's car at one shooting scene.

Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Horan Jr., who is overseeing the case against Malvo, called the Times report "dead wrong," as the AP reported in a Dec. 23 story.

Horan has since confirmed that the grape stem and videotape do not exist.

A Dec. 30 story again cited the discredited Times report.

[Liz]

The story included the assertion that the evidence pointing to Malvo included saliva found on a grape stem near one of the shootings and a videotape showing a person who appeared to be fellow suspect John Allen Muhammad in the driver's seat of the pair's car at one shooting scene.

A creative fraudster, this guy Blair, eh?

Makes one wonder what other frauds he came up with not related to journalism.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

A creative fraudster, this guy Blair, eh?

Yeah, the Pulitzer committee will probably give him the award for fiction next year.

[Guillermo]

Has anyone heard any of the race hustlers calling the NYT racist?

Some idiot on local (Atlanta) talk radio said if Blair was a white guy, he would have been given 10 chances (as Blair got 5) before he was canned.

[xJones]

Two stories transmitted by The Associated Press in December about the Washington-area sniper case contained material from New York Times reporter Jayson Blair that the newspaper since has called into question.

Whoopsie. So AP used fraudulent material created by the NYT's bad boy, Jayson. How many other news sources believed Jayson's stories because they were printed in the NYT? This is getting more interesting...

[TomGuy]

Maybe Blair and Doris Kearns Goodwin can co-authorplagiarize a book together.

[Uncle Hal]

Just Two?

[maica]

A few weeks ago I happened to see Brian Lamb interviewing an author on CSPAN. I usually click right past CSPAN but something in Lamb's tone caught my ear. I do not remember the author's name or his topic (but it may have been anti-Bush - no surprise there!), but what surprised me was when Brian Lamb asked him his source for something in the book and the author replied The New York Times. Brian went after him hard, saying one unnamed source from the New York Times is hardly sufficient to use as fact.

I was pleasantly surprised, and this was weeks before the Hayson Blair story broke.

[aristeides]

Has the AP ever done this before?

[DuncanWaring]

Yeah, the Pulitzer committee will probably give him the award for fiction next year.

And it will be the basis of a screenplay for an Academy Award-winning documentary directed by MM.

[TomGuy]

I'm sure some scholarly analyst who has access to all of Blair's articles will analyze them.

It would be interesting to see whether his articles pattern a specific agenda, or whether they are about certain topics, or whether they are general articles lifted from multiple published sources.

[Mister Baredog]

Two stories transmitted by The Associated Press in December about the Washington-area sniper case contained material from New York Times

AP gets their news FROM the NY Times? I thought wire services provided news TO their end users, newspapers and TV/radio. THIS explains a lot. Didn't mainstream journalists always tell us that they ALWAYS have at least TWO SOURCES on any important story, BULLS**T!, here's the proof of their LIES!

[Mister Baredog]

Yeah, the Pulitzer committee will probably give him the award for fiction next year.

Then his book will come out, he'll go on book tour, and end up on 60 Minutes doing his mea culpa b4 going on to ABC News, Jennings is waiting for a suitable protege.

[mewzilla]

...Brian went after him hard, saying one unnamed source from the New York Times is hardly sufficient to use as fact.

So what did Brian know and when did he know it?

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Liz: My wife has raised an interesting question (if any Freeper has a way of researching): Did the NY Times Editorial Page rely on or refer to Blair's reporting on the Sniper story or any other major news event? If so, I wonder if they have stepped up and delivered the abject apology they owe EVERYONE!

[laurav]

Well, it's all a wee bit incestuous. Wire services exist as a coalition of newspapers, gathering news for each other. AP reporters are out there covering their own beats, but if a newspaper has a good scoop, the AP will file that so other editors that may not have read the original story will see it.

The assumption, of course, was that the NY Times was accurate. Funny, of course. One time I was quoted in the NY Times and they spelled my name wrong.

[Mister Baredog]

I'm sure some scholarly analyst who has access to all of Blair's articles will analyze them.

Black Studies Depts all over America will study his techniques of getting ahead so well without having to work very hard, maybe they'll even create a specific course to study his life. A "useful course" in a "useless" Dept.

[Cicero]

I remember those articles claiming that Malvo was the prime shooter. There were a raft of them, and they were never corrected.

[maica]

Tonight is the first time I have read that the sniper 'grape stem' was fiction.

I am amazed that AP Reuters et al never seemed to question ANYTHING that was printed in the NYTimes!

Rush always said that the evening news broadcasts took their stories directly from the Times. Now it looks like even wire services do it too.

[xJones]

Brian Lamb asked him his source for something in the book and the author replied The New York Times. Brian went after him hard, saying one unnamed source from the New York Times is hardly sufficient to use as fact.

I would hope after this, that it would be much easier to question a source, unnamed or otherwise, if it comes from the NYT. That place is corrupt in many ways, and thankfully, it has many press enemies to go after it.

[randog]

AP gets their news FROM the NY Times? I thought wire services provided news TO their end users, newspapers and TV/radio.

I could be wrong, but I thought I had heard at one time that the NYT provided their own wire service and that a lot of papers relied on it as a news source.