"Jayson was repeatedly warned about having too many errors and he was also consistently praised for showing journalistic energy and enterprise," Raines said. "But still he had trouble with basics of the craft."
But I suppose giving an incompetent black reporter the boot would have compromised Raines' liberal bona-fides. This episode clearly highlights something many others have written -- that "diversity" is not always for the "underprivileged." Its main beneficiaries often are liberals still suffering under white guilt, who get to pat themselves on the back about how good and decent they are. Meanwhile, a once-great newspaper slides a little further into irrelevance.
Here's a sampling of comments from Romenesko's Letters page:
From DAVID McLEMORE:
...There are surely any number of reasons why Jayson Blair so terribly imploded. Like many here, I lay a much of the blame on the editors at the Times. How many corrections must be written before they did more than urge him to be more careful?
Regardless of why it happened, the responsibility of getting right falls on Mr. Blair. He knew he didn't interview the subject of his story. He knew he borrowed a bit too heavily from another reporter's work. He should know what went wrong. He's the one who did it the wrong way.
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From THOMAS COLLINS:
As a former journalist, I worked very hard work to get the kind of assignments seemed to fall into Jayson Blair's lap. I cannot recall a day in the 25 years I worked as a journalist at second-tier newspapers that I didn't worry a mistake could land me back covering night cops or out the door entirely.
The explanations given by [New York Times executive editor Howell] Raines and others seem stuffy and pompous and designed to explain the Blairs of the world as aberrations that somehow slipped through a minor crack in the mighty New York Times. I'm embarrassed not only for longevity of Blair's survival and progress in a career for which most of us would have killed, but for the arrogance of Raines and others who nurtured him and encouraged him.
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From OMAR SOFRADZIJA, Reporter, Peoria (IL) Journal Star:
You know who I feel bad for out of the whole Jayson Blair mess? The person who paid their dues, worked long hours doing all sorts of scrub work, actually graduated from college, did the right things the right way, earned themselves a job interview at The New York Times and lost the job to Blair. Whoever you are, my heart goes out to you. And shame on all the opportunists who always find the career short cut, never give back anything to anybody and whose bylines are more important than what goes underneath.
There are many others, and even a couple that kinda sorta defend Blair, but it seems only Howard Kurtz had the balls to ask the question that needed to be asked:
"Look, this was a promising young black reporter. I wonder if a middle-aged hack would have gotten away with 50 mistakes and still be at that job."
Once again, see this guy's book for more.
And Glenn, I'm sorry, but the fact that Johnny Apple has had more corrections than Jayson Blair is fairly irrelevant. Even if Blair had only a handful of errors, his apparent plagiarism on the San Antonio story and his complete mishandling of the sniper story should have been enough to send him packing.
And finally, Mickey Kaus has more.
