Career Ending
May 11th, 2003 | by Tony Steidler-Dennison | 1 viewsMy guess is that Jayson Blair might now find the money spent on a degree in journalism to be a waste. Outside of the Podunk Daily News, I doubt that he’ll find a career in journalism anywhere in the world.
The New York Times has gone to extraordinary measures to set the record straight on Blair’s journalistic failings. I’ve never seen an expose of an internal breakdown quite as exhaustive as today’s Times piece on the affair. Honestly, I think the piece was a bit ham-fisted. While the Gray Lady appears to be looking to cover all bets in its inability to stem Blair’s falsehoods, it could have been done without the tawdry details. A page or two would have worked, rather than the ten presented in the web edition.
Blair’s clearly made his own career bed. He deserved to be fired and, in fact, doesn’t deserve to work again in journalism. Even if truth in reporting is sometimes tilted to the philosophy of the publication, outright lies are never acceptable. Blair’s actions are akin to those of an arsonist firefighter. But the Times’ approach to correcting the error seems, by its length, a bit self-absorbed.
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2 Responses to “Career Ending”
By joseph castleschouldt on May 11, 2003 | Reply
With all the traveling,the young man didn’t file an expense report for five months.
Any paper trying to cut down on expenses would be lucky to get him.
By Kirk on May 12, 2003 | Reply
Hmmm… sounds like he was practicing “Internet journalism” in a print medium. Perhaps a good parody headline would be:
“NY Times Journalist discovered to be nothing more than a common Blogger”
-shrug-
Either way, believe half of what you see and none of what you hear (or read).
K