Jayson Blair
Encyclopedia
Jayson Blair is an American reporter formerly with The New York Times
. He resigned from the newspaper in May 2003 in the wake of the discovery of plagiarism
and fabrication in his stories. Since 2007 he has worked as a life coach in the field of mental health.
, the son of a federal executive and a school teacher. He attended the University of Maryland, College Park
, and was a student journalist during his time there.
Blair became editor-in-chief of its student newspaper, The Diamondback
, for the 1996–1997 school year. According to a letter later signed by 30 staffers, Blair made four serious errors as a reporter and editor that brought his integrity into question. The letter-signers alleged that questions about those errors were ignored by the board that owned the paper. Among the mistakes they cited was an award-winning story about a student who died of a cocaine overdose who was subsequently found to have actually died of a heart ailment.
After a summer interning at The New York Times
in 1998, Blair was offered an extended internship. He indicated that he had to complete some coursework in order to graduate, and The New York Times agreed to defer it. He returned to The New York Times in January 1999, after "everyone assumed he had graduated. He had not; college officials say he has more than a year of course work to complete." That November, he became an "intermediate reporter."
reporter Macarena Hernandez
on April 18. Hernandez had had a summer internship at The Times years earlier and had worked alongside Blair. The senior editor of the San Antonio Express-News contacted The Times about close similarities between Blair's article and a story penned by their reporter, Hernandez.
A small sample of the suspect articles:
The Times reported on Blair's journalistic misdeeds
in an unprecedented 7,239-word front-page story on May 11, 2003, headlined "Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception." The story called the affair "a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper."
hiring. Jonathan Landman, Blair's editor, told the Siegal committee he felt being black
played a large part in Blair's initial promotion to full-time staffer. "I think race was the decisive factor in his promotion," he said. "I thought then and I think now that it was the wrong decision."
On May 14, 2003, while he was still Times executive editor, Howell Raines
acknowledged at a massive meeting of Times news staffers, managers, and its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., that Blair had gotten the breaks he had enjoyed because of his race. Five days later, Times African-American op-ed columnist Bob Herbert
asserted in his column that race had nothing to do with the Blair case: "Listen up: the race issue in this case is as bogus as some of Jayson Blair's reporting."
After resigning from The Times, Blair returned to college and said he planned to go into human resources
. In 2007 he became a life coach at Ashburn Psychological Services in northern Virginia. In 2010, he began his own consulting and life coaching practice in his hometown of Centreville, Virginia.
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. He resigned from the newspaper in May 2003 in the wake of the discovery of plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
and fabrication in his stories. Since 2007 he has worked as a life coach in the field of mental health.
Background
Blair was born in Columbia, MarylandColumbia, Maryland
Columbia is a planned community that consists of ten self-contained villages, located in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It began with the idea that a city could enhance its residents' quality of life. Creator and developer James W. Rouse saw the new community in terms of human values, not...
, the son of a federal executive and a school teacher. He attended the University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
, and was a student journalist during his time there.
Blair became editor-in-chief of its student newspaper, The Diamondback
The Diamondback
The Diamondback is the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland, College Park. It was founded in 1910 as The Triangle and renamed in 1921 in honor of a local reptile, the Diamondback terrapin...
, for the 1996–1997 school year. According to a letter later signed by 30 staffers, Blair made four serious errors as a reporter and editor that brought his integrity into question. The letter-signers alleged that questions about those errors were ignored by the board that owned the paper. Among the mistakes they cited was an award-winning story about a student who died of a cocaine overdose who was subsequently found to have actually died of a heart ailment.
After a summer interning at The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in 1998, Blair was offered an extended internship. He indicated that he had to complete some coursework in order to graduate, and The New York Times agreed to defer it. He returned to The New York Times in January 1999, after "everyone assumed he had graduated. He had not; college officials say he has more than a year of course work to complete." That November, he became an "intermediate reporter."
Plagiarism and fabrication scandal
On April 28, 2003, Blair received a call from Times national editor Jim Roberts asking him about similarities between a story he had written two days earlier and one written by San Antonio Express-NewsSan Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News is the daily newspaper of San Antonio, Texas. It is ranked as the third-largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas in terms of circulation, and is one of the leading news sources of South Texas, with offices in Austin, Brownsville, Laredo, and Mexico City...
reporter Macarena Hernandez
Macarena Hernandez
Macarena Hernández is a United States academic and journalist best known for covering Latino issues such as immigration and education.Hernández became a news story herself, twice. In 2003, while writing for the San Antonio Express-News her work was plagiarized by a New York Times reporter...
on April 18. Hernandez had had a summer internship at The Times years earlier and had worked alongside Blair. The senior editor of the San Antonio Express-News contacted The Times about close similarities between Blair's article and a story penned by their reporter, Hernandez.
A small sample of the suspect articles:
- In the October 30, 2002, piece "US Sniper Case Seen as a Barrier to a Confession," Blair wrote that a dispute between police authorities had ruined the interrogation of suspect John Muhammad and that Muhammad was about to confess, quoting unnamed officials. This was swiftly denied by everyone involved. Blair also named certain lawyers, who were not present, as having witnessed the interrogation.
- In the February 10, 2003, piece "Peace and Answers Eluding Victims of the Sniper Attacks," Blair claimed to be in Washington, plagiarized quotations from a Washington Post story, and fabricated quotations from a person he had not interviewed. Blair ascribed a wide range of facts to a man featured in the article, almost all of which the man in question denied. Blair also published information that he had promised was off the record.
- In the March 3, 2003, piece "Making Sniper Suspect Talk Puts Detective in Spotlight," Blair claimed to be in Fairfax, VirginiaFairfax, VirginiaThe City of Fairfax is an independent city forming an enclave within the confines of Fairfax County, in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Although politically independent of the surrounding county, the City is nevertheless the county seat....
. He described a videotape of Lee Malvo, the younger defendant in the case, being questioned by police and quoted officials' review of the tape. No such tape existed. Blair also claimed a detective noticed blood on a man's jeans leading to a confession, which did not occur.
- In the March 27, 2003, piece "Relatives of Missing Soldiers Dread Hearing Worse News," Blair again pretended to be in West Virginia and plagiarized quotations from an Associated Press article. He claimed to have spoken to one relative who had no recollection of meeting Blair, said "tobacco fields and cattle pastures" were visible from Lynch's parents' house when they were not, erroneously stated that Lynch's brother was in the National Guard, misspelled Lynch's mother's name, and fabricated a dream that he claimed she had had.
- In the April 3, 2003, piece "Rescue in Iraq and a ‘Big Stir' in West Virginia," Blair claimed to have covered the Jessica LynchJessica LynchJessica Dawn Lynch is a former Private First Class in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps. Lynch served in Iraq during the 2003 invasion by U.S. and allied forces. On March 23, 2003 she was injured and captured by Iraqi forces but was recovered on April 1 by U.S...
story from her home town of Palestine, West Virginia. Blair never traveled to Palestine, and his entire contribution to the story consisted of rearranged details from Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
stories. - In the April 7, 2003, piece "For One Pastor, the War Hits Home," Blair wrote of a church service in Cleveland and an interview with the minister. Blair never went to Cleveland; he only spoke to the minister on the phone and then copied most of the article from an earlier Washington Post article. He also plagiarized quotations from The Plain Dealer and New York Daily NewsNew York Daily NewsThe Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
. He fabricated a detail about the minister's keeping a picture of his son inside his Bible and got the name of the church wrong. - In the April 19, 2003, piece "In Military Wards, Questions and Fears From the Wounded," Blair described interviewing four injured soldiers in a naval hospital. He never went to the hospital and only spoke to one soldier on the phone, to whom he later attributed made-up quotes. Blair wrote that the soldier "will most likely limp the rest of his life and need to use a cane," which was untrue. He said another soldier had lost his right leg when it had only been amputated below the knee. He described two soldiers as being in the hospital at the same time when in fact they were admitted five days apart.
The Times reported on Blair's journalistic misdeeds
Journalism ethics and standards
Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by journalists. Historically and currently, this subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism"...
in an unprecedented 7,239-word front-page story on May 11, 2003, headlined "Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception." The story called the affair "a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper."
Aftermath
The investigation saw heated debate over affirmative actionAffirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
hiring. Jonathan Landman, Blair's editor, told the Siegal committee he felt being black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
played a large part in Blair's initial promotion to full-time staffer. "I think race was the decisive factor in his promotion," he said. "I thought then and I think now that it was the wrong decision."
On May 14, 2003, while he was still Times executive editor, Howell Raines
Howell Raines
Howell Hiram Raines was Executive Editor of The New York Times from 2001 until he left in 2003 in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal. He is the father of Jeff Raines, one of the founding members of the rock band Galactic...
acknowledged at a massive meeting of Times news staffers, managers, and its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., that Blair had gotten the breaks he had enjoyed because of his race. Five days later, Times African-American op-ed columnist Bob Herbert
Bob Herbert
Robert “Bob” Herbert is an American journalist op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times. His column was syndicated to other newspapers around the country. Herbert frequently writes on poverty, the Iraq war, racism and American political apathy towards race issues...
asserted in his column that race had nothing to do with the Blair case: "Listen up: the race issue in this case is as bogus as some of Jayson Blair's reporting."
After resigning from The Times, Blair returned to college and said he planned to go into human resources
Human resources
Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
. In 2007 he became a life coach at Ashburn Psychological Services in northern Virginia. In 2010, he began his own consulting and life coaching practice in his hometown of Centreville, Virginia.
Further reading
- "N.Y. Times Uncovers Dozens Of Faked Stories by Reporter." Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
. May 11, 2003. - Kugler, Sara. "New York Times executives Howell Raines, Gerald Boyd resign." Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. June 5, 2003. - "Making a Turnaround," bp Magazine (bphope.com). Spring 2005. Retrieved 2010-12-06.
- "Jayson Blair searches for new life, reflects on legacy." Fairfax County TimesTimes Community NewspapersTimes Community Newspapers is a group of contiguous weeklies in Northern Virginia, USA, and the Piedmont, USA.Based in Herndon, Virginia, the newspaper group provides local news in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington, D.C. With more than 200 years of local newspaper history, the company grew...
. June 9, 2005. - Blair: Why NYT should keep employee in-house. RomeneskoJim RomeneskoJim Romenesko is an American journalist based in Evanston, IL, who ran the blog Romenesko on the website of the non-profit journalism school the Poynter Institute. The blog provided daily news, commentary, and insider information about journalism and media and was popular among professionals in...
Media News (Poynter InstitutePoynter InstituteThe Poynter Institute is a non-profit school for journalism located in St. Petersburg, Florida. The school's mission statement says that "The Poynter Institute is a school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders. It promotes excellence and integrity in the practice of...
). June 15, 2005.
External links
- Global coverage of articles on the story at Journalism.orgProject for Excellence in JournalismThe Project for Excellence in Journalism is a non-profit research organization in the US that uses empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It asserts that it is "non partisan, non ideological and non political"...
- Q&A: Jayson Blair via mediabistro