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N.Y. Times Said to Suspend Correspondent [Burning Down My Master's House NEW YORK - Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg was reportedly suspended by The New York Times for two weeks as the newspaper published an editors' note about his handling of a feature story about Florida oystermen.   Bragg, a Times national correspondent, declined comment when reached at his New Orleans home Saturday. The newspaper also has refused comment on the suspension, reported Friday on the Columbia Journalism Review's Web site. The report comes in the wake of the scandal surrounding former Times reporter Jayson Blair, who was found by...

In a racially charged book proposal bristling with anger at the New York Times, Jayson Blair likens himself to teenage sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo and rages at the newspaper he calls "my tormentor, my other drug, my slavemaster." The proposed book, which some literary agents say could bring the disgraced former reporter a six-figure advance, is titled "Burning Down My Master's House." Blair says of Malvo, the alleged triggerman in some of the Washington-area sniper murders last fall: "The moment I began to see parallels between his life and mine was the moment things began falling apart." He writes...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Where is the literary feeding frenzy? Book publishers have yet to besiege Jayson Blair with the million-dollar offers his agent predicted after the ex-reporter's plagiarised and falsified stories bloodied the New York Times. One publisher said she wouldn't touch Blair's story with a 10-foot pole. Another said she'd be a sucker to pay $1 million for a book by Blair. But the literary world was intrigued about the idea of someone publishing something by the disgraced journalist who left the Times this month. Most agreed Blair will likely get some kind of deal for a...

Don't call them liars, thieves, rogues, scoundrels, scalawags, blackguard, cads or creeps. Call them authors. In what seems to be an inevitable development these days, former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is writing a book to capitalize on his sudden fame — or infamy, if indeed the distinction still exists. The news about Blair's literary ambitions comes on the heels of the publication of "The Fabulist," Stephen Glass' fictional (wink-wink) account of how he fooled The New Republic and other publications with phony stories.

Scandalous scribe Jayson Blair says he "couldn't stop laughing" at The New York Times' Sunday opus on his wrongdoings at the paper and bragged about fooling "the most brilliant people in journalism." In an interview to be published today in The New York Observer, the 27-year-old Blair seemed to even get a kick out of The Times' lengthy investigative report into his fraudulent reporting. Referring to The Times' account of a deceptive story he wrote about rescued POW Pvt. Jessica Lynch, Blair told The Observer, "That's my favorite, just because the description was so far off from the reality." Blair...

Anger made him do it, Jayson Blair claims in a rage-filled book proposal hawking the tale of his downfall at The New York Times. Hoping to cash in on his newfound infamy, Blair proposes to write a book titled "Burning Down My Master's House," in which he admits to alcohol and drug addiction but accuses The Times of racism. He also vows to expose the newspaper's "darkest secrets," including "an editor caught sleeping with his intern" and "cocaine parties on the fifth floor of the newsroom," according to his eight-page proposal, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily...