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12 May 2003: "Times of Embarrassment"

While trolling through the Dutch newspaper sites I came across a report regarding Jayson Blair, formerly of the New York Times, who fabricated large amounts of his work for the Times. To its credit, the Times is handling this situation about as well as can be expected. The main article on the whole sorry business can be found here, and a nine-page catalogue of Blair's lies can also be found on the site. The NYT has also stated this list may not be exhaustive, and is asking readers to report any other errors they may be aware of.

Predictably, there's a certain amount of discussion about how this cock-up occurred, especially since there had been some warning bells regarding Blair for some time. My gut feeling is simply that he seemed a nice, eager, enthusiastic chap, that he worked hard to gain a certain amount of trust, and abused it. There's no point in over-analysing, and certainly not over-dramatising the affair; cub reporter went wrong, the NYT caught it. Let's not imagine that there was any other reason for Blair's resignation than that he was going to be unceremoniously thrown out otherwise. Big fat "word" to Jeff Jarvis on this matter.

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