Results tagged “jaysonblair”

Having blown one of the most coveted jobs in journalism through sheer mendacity, laziness, and drug abuse, former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair has found work coaching others on how to live their lives. It was over six years ago that Blair caused a huge scandal at the Times, after it was discovered that he'd fabricated a number of articles, deeply embarrassing the paper of record and bringing down executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald M. Boyd with him. But now Blair's turned the beat around and is certified to coach lives, at a mental health practice in northern Virginia—here's his website. Blair tells the AP, "People say, 'Wait a minute. You're a life coach?' That makes no sense. Then they think about my life experiences and what I've been through and they say 'Wait a minute. It does make sense.'" And Blair's boss, psychologist Michael Oberschneider, coos, "Very few people can go through what he did and come back. He really is a success story." Unfortunately, that's exactly what Raines thought before Blair went and burned his house down.

- Looking at the this years tax returns for the folks who would be Governor.

The writers, a he-said-she-said team, use Columbia dorms as pseudonyms say, "Nothing is off-limits. We're not trying to offend people, but there will be people offended. It's hard to be politically correct when talking about anal sex." But some students think it's crass and tacky: A junior tells the Post, "They make it seem that one-night stands are as much a part of the weekend as drinking beer." Well, wait till you graduate, dearie, wait till you graduate, and then'll be a part of your every day.

Gawker points out that Katie freaked out about plastic surgery allegations on Larry King Live last night. Well, for our money, Katie definitely has that soft focus glow thing going on in the interview, but we can't tell if it's Vaseline on the lens or just an effect of her fuzzy cream sweater.

Sexual favors for drugs during a downward spiral? Okay, that seems par for the course. But dragging Kermit the Frog into this? For shame, Jayson Blair!

Jayson's book, Burning Down My Masters' House, is on bookshelves March 9.

Plus the week in full

Blair's media tour starts on March 5, with a Today show appearance.

In a story about the Jack Kelley possible-plagiarism-at-USA Today brouhaha (most elegantly summarized here, by Gawker), check out how the New York Times gets to spin the Jayson Blair incident as what is making other newspapers are relook their own reporters' work:

You can tell a lot about a year by seeing which posts were popular, and from Gothamist's standpoint, it's been a banner year for our readers who are perverts or nerds (we're hoping the loyal readers are both). Here are a few of our most popular posts: Thoughts on the Matrix Reloaded; 100 Best Songs; when we pretended to know all about friendster messages; Paris Hilton sex tapes and her SNL appearance; Nicole Richie's racial identity; What not to do when you blog; Jelly Kelly; Best Movie Sex Scenes; Michael Jackson's mugshot; Nudist camps for teenagers; Blackout Edition; Lever House Restaurant; Metrosexuals; Hating Lauren Weisberger (related, Weisberger on her boss Anna Wintour ), Jayson Blair, Blair Hornstine; Larry Wachowski's possible sex change; anything on teenaged stars, speficially Hilary Duff (related, her nutty fans); the New York City Blackout Edition; and our Events page, brought to life by editor Mindy and intern Willa.

The New York Crimes tee from Sophomore, at Girlshop. Even though it's cut a little small, it would be perfectly sized for Jayson Blair, the pocket size plagiarist.

Media watchers, mark your calendars: Katie Couric will interview Jayson Blair for a special (Dateline, probably) and Today show appearance next year, timed with the March 9 release of Blair's book about his, ahem, escapades/downward spiral at the Times, according to Lloyd Grove. Couric tells Grove, "Hopefully, it will be a full account. I'm especially interested in this because I came of age during the whole Janet Cooke controversy, and this seemed to have echoes of that."

- O.R. are they?

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The Observer's The Transom visits the launch party at Elaine's for the new Law & Order: Crime Scenes coffee table book. Dick Wolf tells the Observer the show, and its many spin-offs, are "like visual nicotine. Some people get addicted." Yes, Gothamist will need to undergo a serious rehabilitation program if L&O addicition is ever classified as a mental disorder by the experts.

- Turning a city into a big game

The Post's Keith Kelly has a scoop on Jayson Blair's first piece of writing post-Times: His Jane magazine article is about mistakes he made and suggests readers not repeat them. Like getting ticketed for speeding in the company car, and not paying the ticket, only to have your company crack down. In the scheme of things, that's pretty ho-hum. He also says, as Kelly puts it, "wait a few years and build up some good will before letting their eccentricities show" in the office. That Gothamist can whole-heartedly agree with - why show all your cards at once? Having a job is like dating someone you really like: Wait until the last possible minute to reveal the crazy.

." And what about that "unique perspective" Blair could offer?

Ooh, it seems like FilmJerk.com has the inside tip on what Gothamist has been waiting for, as it's two of our favorite things: The Law & Order episode that rips the Jayson Blair scandal from the headlines. But the episode will supposedly feature the murder of a fabricating reporter. Wolf Productions would not confirm the episode was in the works, but, really, this premise is so ripe for L&O. We wonder if real Times reporters are trying to get roles on this episode. Gothamist would like to be the bickering friends who stumble across the dead reporters' body, but we'd settle for being nosy onlookers at the crime scene. [Via NY Daily News]

Okay, let's get this straight: Jayson Blair now has two big media gigs. One will be reviewing the movie based on the lying lie-y ways of fellow liar, Stephen Glass, for Esquire; Blair was hired for his "unique perspective" or some such PR blah blah to aptly accompany the loads of press this hiring would elicit. That's pretty meta, Gothamist must say. Brilliantly played, Granger, brilliantly played.

Perhaps we're still whiffing the Jayson Blair scandal or the impending consolidation of the media industry, or maybe Gothamist is just paranoid (as usual), but lately we've been hypersensitive to the appearence of journalistic impropriety. Recently, while reading Discover Magazine's slavish paean to the grotesque MaxiMog, we were appalled by the conflict of interest. The MaxiMog was designed and built by one Bran Ferren, formerly of Disney's Imagineering. However nowhere in the praise heaped on Ferren and his kooky car could you find the fact that Discover is also owned by the Disney corporation. The Economist, on the other hand, is one of our favorite magazines. Aside from being foreign, and therefore inherently superior, they scrupulously note every time their parent company, Pearson, or their sister publications are mentioned. For example, this article would seem to suggest that editorial independence is not yet dead (or at least wasn't in 1998).

Yesterday's Jim Rutenberg piece about CBS trying to land the Jessica Lynch interview by flexing its synergies with in the Viacom family (MTV, Simon & Schuster) was pretty disturbing, but not that surprising, given the incestuous nature of the media industries.

The Post says that New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. denies that his family made him ask Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd to resign. He had, famously, right after the Jayson Blair scandal emerged, said that he would not accept Raines' and Boyd's resignations. "Towards the end of last week, and even more towards the beginning of this week, it became clear to them, and in turn to me, that the best thing for this paper would be for them to resign," Sulzberger tells Newsweek.

Newsday looks at Joseph Lelyveld's first day on the job as interim executive editor at the Times, which included rallying the troops. He told staffers, "So, let's go to work. Let's really go to work." Which echoes Clyde Haberman's claim that nothing was getting done in the midst of the management chaos.

After all the hubbub about the resignations of New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd, Jayson Blair has been the hot get, since it's widely considered that his behavior caused their downfall. Newsday interviewed Blair in SoHo yesterday and reports that Blair said "he awoke at 11 a.m. Thursday, washed down a mood stabilizer with cranberry juice, then turned on his computer and learned about the resignations through an e-mail from a CNN producer."

Disgraced reporter and Times shake-up catalyst Jayson Blair let CNN know how he felt about Howell Raines' and Gerald Boyd's resignations in an email: "I am sorry to hear that more people have fallen in this sequence of events that I had unleashed. I wish the rolling heads had stopped with mine." Gothamist notes that Blair certainly is a writer in need of a good copy editor.

Daily News film critic Jake Matthews considers the possibility of a Jayson Blair movie. He thinks comedy is that way to go, perhaps as a "newsroom update of "Faust" might work, with Mephistopheles represented by (take your pick of Blair's excuses) deadline pressure, drugs, alcohol, undisciplined genius, institutional racism, asleep-at-the-wheel editors or - my favorite - the schizophrenic urge to kill the journalist so the man might live." Matthews also calls Stephen Glass' book, The Fabulist, a "theya culpa." Hee.

Sridhar Pappu says that the young reporters at the New York Times have drafted a memo to management, to improve how the paper treats the youngings, including suggestions like ending "favoritism in the newsroom, develop[ing] transparent procedures for filling open positions, and provid[ing] other amenities for young reporters eager for advancement" - to avoid Jayson Blair like incidents. Jennifer 8. Lee tells Pappu the memo "was more about thoughtfulness than it was about griping." What a novel approach - thoughtfulness versus griping. In a side note, Gothamist enjoys reading Lee, one of the memo's draftters, and loves her middle initial.

- Gothamist and the Brooklyn Photo Blogger Posse