New York Times Writer Lied, Plagarized

Unfortunately, this happens.


It's perhaps as interesting as reading the newsagency's article to have a look at the article about in the New York Times itself.
Especially, since the fact was discovered by them:
CORRECTING THE RECORD - Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception

I likewise read about the serial plagiarist at the Times slack-jawed.

This nation's news media has truly sunk to deeper depths even than I had previously fathomed.

And I had fathomed pretty damn deep.

Actually, they note correct to a dot the until now known facts, publish them all.
I haven't seen such by many other papers yet, if by one.

Yes, Walter, your link is the one I read and they do a maxima mea culpa.

I suppose, to their credit, but I cannot quickly accept their apology, given such lax application of standards they claim to hold so dear.

They explained a whole lot more about their HR procedures than I was interested in.

The fact that there had been no cross check from his own expense reports tells me that the NYT wasnt looking too hard. The QA and editing procedure will have to be strengthened a great deal in order to restore credibility.
I believe this is endemic to the news. reporters gather nuggets of facts and quotes and string them together to make a story from a certain POV.From my own experience Ive seen more mundane stories containing quotes from persons that I know were not interviewed at all.
You can usually feed some stuff to a reporter(like the tobacco fields references by the Lynch's) and, some reporter will weave that into a tale that his editors will love. We the readers just let it go even when we have evidence that the reporters were lying.
Why do we leave this go?
Because the newspapers retractions will probably be even more error filled.

Last week, the NYTimes reported on this particular reporter. Unfortunately, he had been an intern with the Times, performed very well and was able to obtain a job.

What's surprising is the fact that most journalism students today, take a course in ethics prior to graduation. I can't help but wonder how much cheating he did while a journalism student. All this cheating didn't start at the age of 27 years.

Oh maaaaaaaaan.

YAHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I find his attitude appalling. He was caught, "with his pants down". The decent thing that he could have done was to straighten the record.

I wonder if he has broken any law. At the least, I would suspect that the NYT could file a civil suit against him. What do you think? Do you think that the Times should make an example of him to mintain the credibility of the newspaper?

The Boston Globe has fired several reporters in the past, for similar misdeeds.

New York Times Writer Lied, Plagarized
The shock value dimishes with repetition. This has happened before and will happen again. I now regard evrything written with a jaundiced eye. While that may tempt you to believe nothing that you read is true we cannot deny that within that assumption is the belief that the numbers game says some at least must be true. It remains for us to reserve judgment until satisfactory explanations confirm within our minds the validity of this belief. This would not be necessary if we lived in the best of all possible worlds. Let's face it, that's not where we live.

I want to remark that such a reporter is a blacksheep of the newspaper, and plagiarizing and lies are not characteristic NYTimes. I still consider this newspaper being one of the most reliable sources of information.

I am as bothered as any of you by this event -- but I wouldn't use it as a reason for painting all of the print media with such a broad brush.

My guess is most newspaper reporters would not do anything remotely like what this chump did.

Unfortunately, television reporters, perhaps due to the nature of their medium, really have a lot to answer for along these lines.

FrankApisa- What bothered me was that there was so little oversight over the reporter. Here he was claiming to be in a myriad of places, and there were no expense account bills. In addition, this guy had had his problems with the newspaper before. Why wasn't he on a shorter leash?

I don't ever like to paint anything with too broad a brush. I know that the vast majority of reporters are hard working honest folks who want to do a good job.It seems to me though, that the Times needs to institute some sort of checks and balances, to make sure that this sort of thing won't happen again.

How can they check each and every reporter?

Phoenix, I'm only on page 8 of the 10-page report (!), but it looks like he was on a very short leash, but there was bad communication between superiors when he was transferred to D.C. to cover the sniper situation, and the new set of superiors didn't have any reason to keep such a close eye on things.



Still, it looks like the highest level of management messed up big time.

May 11, 2003
Editors' Note

Ten days ago, Jayson Blair resigned as a reporter for The New York Times after the discovery that he had plagiarized parts of an article on April 26 about the Texas family of a soldier missing in Iraq. An article on Page 1 today recounts a chain of falsifications and plagiarism that unraveled when The Times began an inquiry into that Texas article. At least 36 more articles written by Mr. Blair since October reflected plagiarism, misstatements, misrepresentation of the reporter's whereabouts or a combination of those. An accounting of the flaws will be found on the right side of this page, as the first headline under "Related."

Today's article and the accounting result from a weeklong investigation by five Times reporters and a team of researchers. The newspaper organized it in the belief that the appropriate corrective for flawed journalism is better journalism — accurate journalism.

The reporters have telephoned news sources cited by Mr. Blair and have interviewed other journalists who worked with him. Executives have read them summaries of telephone records and expense documents. To examine the newsroom processes that went awry, they have had unrestricted access to other Times staff members, including top editors, involved with Mr. Blair's copy and the management of his career. Within the limits of laws and ethical codes governing health and employment records, Times managers have described documents for the reporting team.

The reporters' examination has centered on the last seven months, a period in which Mr. Blair increasingly received assignments distant from the newsroom, which allowed him wider independence. His earlier work, done under closer supervision, will be spot-checked. If another major examination appears warranted, it will be carried out. Readers and news sources who know of defects in additional articles should send e-mail to The Times: retrace@ nytimes.com.

In online databases that include copy from The Times, cautionary notices will be attached to the faulty articles in coming days.

The Times regrets that it did not detect the journalistic deceptions sooner. A separate internal inquiry, by the management, will examine the newsroom's processes for training, assignment and accountability.

For all of the falsifications and plagiarism, The Times apologizes to its readers in the first instance, and to those who have figured in improper coverage. It apologizes, too, to those whose work was purloined and to all conscientious journalists whose professional trust has been betrayed by this episode.



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NYTimes for Sunday 5/11/03 Online Edition

New Haven- You wrote,



Subsequently you came up with the answer:



No, the paper cannot possibly check each and every word written by a reporter. What they can do, is ensure appropriate managerial oversight!

Phoenix said: "No, the paper cannot possibly check each and every word written by a reporter. What they can do, is ensure appropriate managerial oversight!"

The problem is the bottom line, which is money. They (the management) want to sell papers - more accurately they want to sell advertising, which pays the bills. So they want their paper to be well-read and popular, which is a good selling point with advertising clients.

My guess is that there were red flags waving all over the place in regards to Blair. They probably realized this story was going to be exposed and decided to expose it themselves so it looked like they were on top of things (albeit a little late).

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is not unusual, even in newspapers. I know. I worked for a newspaper for nearly 30 years (a small one compared to the NY Times), but nevertheless I heard many horror stories about purposeful inaccuracies in "news" stories to fit the opinions of the editors. Reporters were threatened with being fired, some were actually fired, when they protested about the way their stories were being edited by management.

Yes, it all starts with management and it all ends there, just like with any other business. Unfortunately, the media in all forms has gotten way out of control.