Well, I imagine there'd be some debate about who's embarrassing who here, but I apologize for the scatological outburst. I reserve the right to be irritated by the standard right wing line that they are Americas and anybody who doesn't toe their current dogmatic line on voodoo economics on taxes isn't, and I'd guess that a pretty big majority here is similarly irritated. No excuse for being rude, but I'd argue that the "we're America and you aren't" line is pretty rude too.
As to the NYT, it became forever known as a bad source on the right long before Jayson Blair was born. And comparing the NYT to some provincial clone of the standard right wing "think tank" / propaganda mill is a bit of a reach. Jayson Blair always gets trotted out, but plagiarism, although a mortal sin among journalists, does not imply either inaccuracy or bias. Maybe what he plagiarized was accurate, maybe it wasn't. Making things up is worse. But the main thing about Jayson Blair is that none of his stuff seems to be particularly important - mainlly a bunch of "human interest" background stuff. Wikipedia's sampling:
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.[7]
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 News. 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.[8]
In the April 3, 2003, piece "Rescue in Iraq and a ‘Big Stir' in West Virginia," Blair claimed to have covered the Jessica Lynch 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 Press stories.[9]
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.[10]
In the March 3, 2003, piece "Making Sniper Suspect Talk Puts Detective in Spotlight," Blair claimed to be in Fairfax, Virginia. 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.[11]
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.[12]
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.[13] en.wikipedia.org
You can check out the collected works of Blair at query.nytimes.com
, from the first few pages and a random sample after, it seemed to be all human interest and local news. A random one that caught my eye:
A Woman Is Found in Flames On a No. 2 Train in the Bronx
By JAYSON BLAIR
Um. Tragic, I'm sure, but not the kind of story the Times would assign the first team to, or that would show up in the national national edition.
The fracking story may not have been very good, but as I posted at the time, it reflected a fairly common point of view about shale gas. Not the mainstream view flogged by Wall Street, but Wall Street has been known to be erroneous in its collective wisdom from time to time also. Despite the alleged infallibility of "free markets".
Anyway, it's pretty ironic to recycle the perennial right wing bitching about the NYT given the mess that Rupert Murdoch is in the middle of right now. And his British tabloid are probably relatively objectivity compared to the Ailes operation at Fox News, from the reality-based community point of view anyway. How did the NYT respond to the Blair fiasco? From the wiki story
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."[4] ( the story is at nytimes.com, and looks to be about twice as long as the standard long NYT Magazine story, which is normally the longest thing the Times prints. )
Think Murdoch is going to do something similar? Or maybe do a story on the (rather considerable) fruits of his lobbying efforts with the US Congress? I'm thinking not, but I could be wrong. Of course, Murdoch's got a ways to go to match the journalistic integrity of Berlusconi, but that could happen too. |
