Jayson Blair and the American Dream 

Howell Raines, executive editor of the New York Times, wanted to bring “diversity” to the great newspaper. Well, he certainly got it. More of it, much more, than he bargained for.

A couple of years ago Raines was showing off a young black reporter named Jayson Blair as a prize example of the paper’s commitment to “diversity.” Today he wishes he’d never heard the name of Jayson Blair.

Young Blair, 27, has turned out to be the greatest embarrassment in the Times’s long history. He is a con man. He plagiarized stories from other papers, fabricated facts and quotes, even pretended to file stories from afar when he was actually writing them in his own home. Oddly enough, none of the people Blair misquoted — or simply invented quotes for — complained to the paper.

Raines is a white Southern liberal, the sort who tends to be not only liberal, but liberal with a vengeance. He has tried to bring color to the Gray Lady in every sense, and it must be said that the Times has become markedly more readable under his regime, sometimes verging on hip. It used to be as staid as, say, the Encyclopedia Britannica. That’s why they called it the Gray Lady. But now it risks becoming a scarlet woman.

Other editors at the paper had been trying to warn Raines for months. They noticed that Blair’s stories were full of errors requiring corrections and retractions. There was a general fishiness about his work. (One tip-off: he didn’t even file for travel expenses for some of his alleged trips.) But Haines ignored the red flags until Blair was caught early in May in a blatant theft from a San Antonio paper.

Whoops! Suddenly the Gray Lady was blushing crimson. She was the laughingstock of journalism. The most self-important paper in a self-important profession — if journalism can be called a profession (and it does profess to be a profession) — had created a mortifying sensation. This week Blair is on the covers of at least three weekly magazines.

The Times, heedful of its claim to be the Conscience of Journalism, ’fessed up with a huge front-page account of Blair’s fraudulent articles. Raines called a powwow of the paper’s staffers — some 500 of whom attended — and announced his own contrition, not only for Blair, but for his own autocratic management style. He even offered to resign. (His loyal publisher said his resignation would not be accepted.) He welcomed criticism; the welkin rang with primal screams of disgruntled employees, as countless grievances were aired.

How could this happen? How could this happen? That was the anguished question on everyone’s lips. It was a journalistic 9/11.

In short, everyone but Raines and a few other culprits was having a wonderful time. It’s not every day that everyone in journalism gets to gloat over the New York Times. Conservatives moralized about how Blair illustrates the lowering of standards affirmative action leads to; liberals moralized about other stuff, as liberals will; everyone seemed to find his (or her, as the diversity code enjoins us to add) own moral.

Even Blair has gotten into the act, commenting on his own story. In an interview with the New York Observer, he portrayed himself as more sinned against than sinning. Specifically, he said it was hard to decide whether he had benefited more from racial preferences than suffered from racism at the Times. Raines must be learning a bitter lesson: nobody thanks a liberal.

But that’s not all. Blair isn’t even sorry. “I fooled some of the most brilliant minds in journalism,” he points out. “They’re all so smart, but I was sitting right under their nose fooling them. If they’re all so brilliant and I’m such an affirmative action hire, how come they didn’t catch me?” He used the word idiot to describe some of them, and called the Times “a snake pit.” Reading its correction of one of his yarns, he “just couldn’t stop laughing.”

Some of Blair’s former colleagues, recalling his charm and skill in ingratiating himself with superiors, are diagnosing him as a “sociopath.” Sounds like there are few fond memories on either side.

But have no fear. Jayson Blair will land on his feet. Disgrace is only a steppingstone to better things. He has already hired an agent and is — of course! — ready to entertain book and movie offers. Isn’t that how all stories end in America nowadays?

Joseph Sobran