Times Bomb [Jayson Blair's inside story, from Newsweek]

Newsweek ^ | May 18, 2003 | Seth Minookin and others

[summer]

Times Bomb

Newsweek

.... As the Times meeting was unfolding, Jayson Blair was holed up in an apartment in Manhattan, talking with his lawyer and his literary agent. The week before, friends say, Blair had checked himself out of Silver Hill, a tony inpatient hospital in New Canaan, Conn., where he had been receiving treatment for a history of alcoholism, cocaine abuse and manic depression, NEWSWEEK has learned. ....

...In a conversation with NEWSWEEK, Blair spoke of his feelings since his career went up in flames: "I can't say anything other than the fact that I feel a range of emotions including guilt, shame, sadness, betrayal, freedom and appreciation for those who have stood by me, been tough on me, and have taken the time to understand that there is a deeper story and not to believe everything they read in the newspapers."...

...But Blair's performance, already spotty, seemed to be getting worse. His personal life also seemed to be spinning out of control. His apartment in Brooklyn was littered with broken furniture and rotting food, his landlord said; there was fungus, and mold. When he moved out in the fall of 2002, the place was in such sordid condition his landlord considered taking him to small-claims court to recoup damages. "It was real filth," the landlord told NEWSWEEK. "Imagine using a bathroom for two-and-a-half years and never cleaning it."

....Within months, Blair was circulating drafts of a book proposal on the sniper story in which he discussed his own anger and frustration as an African-American. "[A friend] encouraged me to look for answers about the history of violence in my own family and that of Lee Malvo [the other sniper suspect], suggesting the search would not be in vain, if it at least ended my restless angst," Blair wrote. Later, he told friends that he identified with Malvo....

[aristeides]

And the Supreme Court is about to come out with its affirmative action decision.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Something else strikes me about this guy Blair. He's a total liar. About everything including the words "and" and "the". He is constantly lying.

I recognize this because my cousin is exactly the same way. He's a homosexual (started out straight btw...but there were more gullible gays that let him act out his childishness for a longer period of time, so he *became* gay. And was a huge drug user.). My cousin is a loser with a capital L. So is Blair.

My cousin now lives at home with his mother after shaming the family and doing some other rather nefarious petty horrible things I won't mention here.

The elderly women in the family enable him because he's so charming(!). My cousin was from a very upper middle class family...went to college...everything. Bad egg.

[Timesink]

IMO, it is also very damaging to Blair that Blair claimed he "identified" with the sniper suspect, Malvo. Does this identification and sympathy mean Blair will go out of his way to interfer with the prosecutors' case against Malvo?

Maybe, but judging from this article, it seems Blair was just more of a bloviator than anything else. Notice that he seemed to find a way to "identify" with every writing subject he came in contact with. After Columbia blew up, suddenly his dad worked for NASA, etc. I think that aspect of his personality was just to make himself look good to his colleagues. So I don't think it's any indication he would have intentionally set out to screw up the Malvo prosecution.

Of course, just because there's no such indication in this article, doesn't mean it couldn't have happened.

This much seems sure though: The guy has serious manic depression. It alone would explain everything he's done. It would also explain the booze and coke; when anti-bipolar drugs don't work, manic-depressives (and regular depressives) will self-medicate. Anything to take the edge off. And, IMHO, this puts far more of the blame on Howell Raines and the Times management for this whole mess. Simply put, most acute depressives, unipolar or bipolar (and I hesitate to even mention unipolars and bipolars in the same post, because even though they're both types of depression, they manifest so differently that it's rather unfair to lump one group in with the other), show their symptoms extremely obviously. If Blair was boozing and coking out as well, there is no way in hell his colleagues at work couldn't have noticed that the guy was experiencing severe personal problems. They should have a) suspended him immediately, WITH PAY, and b) gotten him some help. That's always been the official policy at the news organizations I've worked for with regards to employees that develop alcohol and drug abuse problems and/or serious mental illness. Instead, the Raines gang just kept having him pump out more and more crap so they could parade him around like a circus animal at every "diversity" organization meeting that came along.

The Times management is looking more and more crooked in this matter by the day.

[summer]

RE your post #99 - Your point is well taken, and I wrote about that, at length, here on FR. Most people on FR had no idea how tough it was for teachers during the Clinton era, and also how upsetting it was to me personally that no one from the White House -- no one -- ever came to the schools during the Monica years and its aftermath. Teachers were alone and abandoned by their Dem Party leaders. And, students had plenty of questions, believe me.

[Helms]

Kurtz and his brethern could and should put the pressure on to prevent this. Howard Blah, blah, blah, Kutz. He remains part of the problem.

[summer]

Instead, the Raines gang just kept having him pump out more and more crap so they could parade him around like a circus animal at every "diversity" organization meeting that came along.

The Times management is looking more and more crooked in this matter by the day.
I agree. Wolf Blitzer is yakking about this matter now on CNN.

[summer]

Kurtz and his brethern could and should put the pressure on to prevent this.

I agree.

[Timesink]

I and certain others blew the whistle on WorldCom before it "bought" MCI- a company several TIMES WorldCom's size. HELLLLOOOO! I'm sorry Mr. Accountant, a sardine CANNOT eat a cruise ship.

AOL ate Time Warner. And they did it just in time too, before the fraudulently-inflated value of AOL stock nosedived and took Time Warner down with it. I will always be convinced that was Steve Case's master plan all along: he knew AOL's business plan was illegitimate and could not sustain itself indefinitely, just like every other dotcom out there, so he waited until the stock value became big enough that he could buy out a well-established company with actual assets and profits, and then he'd be on top even if AOL fell apart. And it worked, too. AOL would probably be out of business today if they'd never merged. Instead, Steve Case is set for life. Yeah, he just had to give up his chairmanship, and Time Warner is worth less than half of what it was before the merger, but Steve Case is still worth more than all of us combined, and since he's still got all his stock, he'll be even richer one Time Warner finally gets the cojones to jettison AOL and get back to making money again instead of pouring cash down a giant sewer in Vienna, Virginia.

[summer]

"It was real filth," the landlord told NEWSWEEK. "Imagine using a bathroom for two-and-a-half years and never cleaning it."

The Story of The NY Times.

[Timesink]

Timesink, what you now realize is what I think Howard Kurtz meant in his televised suggestion about a new law: that we have to start recognizing "journalism fraud" here in this Jayson Blair case has reached incredible, new levels, previously unimagined. And, this activity can not continue, even if the NYT management disagrees and insists there is a rational for actively encouraging it.

Yes, you're probably right. I wish I'd seen the Kurtz chat live.

[summer]

If Kurtz really meant what he said -- and, I hope he did -- maybe other news shows will invite him on to elaborate. Truly, something has to change. Jayson Blair should not be rewarded for his fraud.

[onyx]

"Manic depression" my aching arse. That's the sociopath's first line of defense (excuse) when his jig is up.

Had Clinton been removed from office, a similar "tony, inpatient facility" would have been his first stop.

[Timesink]

I just realized something. I bet you anything that after Blair gets himself cleaned up psychologically and realizes that the Raines Boys and the Diversity Über Alles crowd were just using him to further their own ends, he turns into a hardcore conservative.

[summer]

Well, I must admit, I never thought of THAT! :)

[Helms]

Timesink, what you now realize is what I think Howard Kurtz meant in his televised suggestion about a new law

Liberals love laws rather than using good old fashioned blackballing.

[summer]

LOL...well, had the Son of Sam not existed, I am certain some greedy publisher would have paid that killer a fortunate to get the "inside scoop." And, people would have bought the book/movie/whatever. Meanwhile, the victims and their families get squat. Zero. Zip. The NYS law was intended to prevent that very unfair situation.

[summer]

LOL...well, had the NYS Son of Sam Law not existed, I am certain some greedy publisher would have paid that killer a fortunate to get the "inside scoop." And, people would have bought the book/movie/whatever. Meanwhile, the victims and their families get squat. Zero. Zip. The NYS law was intended to prevent that very unfair situation.

[summer]

See my post #117.

[Timesink]

"Manic depression" my aching arse. That's the sociopath's first line of defense (excuse) when his jig is up.

Logical fallacy. That run-of-the-mill sociopaths sometimes use manic depression as an excuse for their actions does not mean manic depression does not exist, or that manic depression does not often manifest itself in sociopathic ways.

If Blair were facing criminal charges and he'd hired Mark Geragos to go on Larry King Live claiming "he's got manic depression," I'd be skeptical. But all Blair's done is lie and look like a jerk. He's got nothing to gain by falsely claiming "manic depression" and looking like a nutcase instead. We live in a society where jerks are tolerated, accepted, even venerated. But depression, manic depression, mental illness? You get shunned, spit upon, condemned by society for having those diseases. Those aren't defenses you raise unless your freedom or life are on the line in a court of law ... or you really have the disorder(s).

[Gothmog]

It would be intersting to contrast the NYT's editorial coverage of Enron vs. the Blair matter. I will bet the NYT's blasted the greedy Enron executives who lied, cooked the books, etc. Blair's case is not the same magnitude financially, but the abuses (helped by NYT's mismanagement) are similar.

Will the NYT's editorial page treat the incidents the same? I doubt it.