To their great credit, the New York Times has responded today at length to the frauds perpetrated in their newspaper by one Jayson Blair. Money quote:
A staff reporter for The New York Times committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months, an investigation by Times journalists has found. The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper. The reporter, Jayson Blair, 27, misled readers and Times colleagues with dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, when often he was far away, in New York. He fabricated comments. He concocted scenes. He stole material from other newspapers and wire services. He selected details from photographs to create the impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not. And he used these techniques to write falsely about emotionally charged moments in recent history, from the deadly sniper attacks in suburban Washington to the anguish of families grieving for loved ones killed in Iraq.
So far, around half of Blair’s 73 articles have been found to be tainted in some way. I think Howell Raines has behaved impeccably in response to this, just as Charles Lane at The New Republic became a real hero in his confrontation with the last fabulist, Stephen Glass, in similar circumstances. The truth is: if someone truly is committed to perpetrating fraud, it’s hard to prevent it. You can’t have minders for every reporter in the field. All you can do is correct, apologize, and then figure out some ways to tighten the net. Affirmative action might have had something to do with Blair’s long run of error; but it didn’t explain Glass. Charm can be these fraudsters’ strongest weapon. Unfortunately, it seems that some of this in Blair’s case was preventable:
The Times inquiry also establishes that various editors and reporters expressed misgivings about Mr. Blair’s reporting skills, maturity and behavior during his five-year journey from raw intern to reporter on national news events. Their warnings centered mostly on his struggle to make fewer errors in his articles. His mistakes became so routine, his behavior so unprofessional, that by April 2002, Jonathan Landman, the metropolitan editor, dashed off a two-sentence e-mail message to newsroom administrators that read: “We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now.”
The Times will now have to figure out why it took them another year before that happened.
THE GOP CHOICE: Two stories: one about Log Cabin Republicans meeting the administration, engaging the Bushies and affirming the right of gay Republicans to be in the party. Meanwhile, RNC Chair Marc Racicot, who definitely is an inclusive man, has to endure a religious right inquisition, in which he has to tell his questioners about his precise views on gay male sex. The divide couldn’t be starker. Or harder, at this point, to bridge.
AN A.P. CORRECTION: This one’s a beaut:
In a May 6 story about Arabs’ “right of return” to Israel, The Associated Press erroneously reported that 4 million Arabs fled the war that followed Israel’s creation in 1948. About 700,000 to 750,000 Arabs are believed to have fled or were expelled from the territory that became Israel in that war, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Today, surviving refugees together with their descendants are estimated by UNRWA to number about 4 million.
How many treasures were stolen from the Baghdad museum again?
“RECKLESS” NUDITY: A new British legal standard.
The Dish 