Affirmative Action Or Ill-Advised Ascension?

Chapter 4 case study1

Affirmative Action or Ill-Advised Ascension?

At Centreville High School in Clifton, VA, Jayson Blair was a highly motivated, ambitious reporter. “He had a wonderful, positive persistence about him that we all admired,” Principal Pamela Y. Latt recalled. Blair’s passion for journalism remained evident throughout his years at the University of Maryland, as well as his internship at The Boston Globe. When he was 21, he applied to be an intern at The New York Times for the summer of 1998. Blair, an African American, garnered a ten-week internship through a program aimed at diversifying The Times’ newsroom. In that span, he wrote 19 articles, assisted senior colleagues, and seemed very dedicated to his work. After a break in which Blair claimed he was finishing college coursework, he returned to the paper in June 1999 and began to write on the police beat. Again, his work ethic was apparent to coworkers, as he worked long hours to produce article after article. However, Jerry Gray, an editor for The Times, warned Blair that his writing was sloppy. By November 1999, Blair was promoted to the metropolitan desk, where he was seen as energetic and eager, but also careless.

In fall 2000, executive editor Joseph Lelyveld ordered an investigation of the metropolitan staff after the number of mistakes in the paper caught his attention. Despite the efforts to maintain accuracy, Blair continued to make blatant mistakes. Colleagues claimed that he ran up unnecessary company expenses, but others knew him for his distinct laugh. By January 2001, Blair had been promoted to full-time reporter. Metropolitan editor Jonathan Landman claimed that he “wasn’t asked so much as told” about Blair’s new position. He also commented on how the publisher and executive editor were committed to bringing diversity to the paper.

Blair did not improve his habit of inaccuracy in his new role, instead declining until an article he wrote a few weeks after September 11, 2001, was so full of errors that the new executive editor, Howell Raines, noticed. Blair’s writing behavior stood out even among the events following 9/11, causing Landman to send Blair a strongly worded evaluation in January 2002 and to notify two further managing editors that Blair was “big trouble.” For months, Blair was on a tight leash, reporting only small incidences and gradually working his way back up. Just as he was about to be moved to sports, he talked his way onto the national desk to report on the John Malvo sniper case revolving around the northern Virginia area where he grew up. Although he was not a lead writer, two of his stories got significant attention. In both, he used “unnamed law enforcement sources,” and each led to official statements from angered authorities. In neither situation did Blair’s superiors ask him to reveal his sources.

It was not until January 2003 that Jim Roberts, national editor, was warned of Blair’s past erratic behavior and problems with accuracy. Under investigation, it was discovered that Blair had lied on receipts, claiming he was in Washington or West Virginia when he had never actually left New York. From late October 2002 to late April 2003, Blair had claimed visiting 20 cities in six states while working on various articles. He produced no records, however, of hotel, rental car, or airline transactions. On April 29, 2003, Roberts called Blair into a meeting and questioned him about a plagiarism complaint from The San Antonio Express-News. He denied the accusation, even looking right into the national editor’s eyes and declaring that he had gotten the information himself. By May 1, Blair had resigned from The Times. Under increased investigations, Times reporters found that Blair had fabricated scenes, comments, and sources for years, with problems discovered in at least 36 of the 73 articles he had written since the October 2002 sniper incident.

Ethically, Jayson Blair was his own worst enemy. But was the fault all his—or did other journalists at The New York Times also act unethically in continuing to promote this inexperienced reporter, even after colleagues warned that Blair was failing to write accurate stories? Did Times executives treat Blair as a means to an end, because he was black? What are some more-ethical ways to diversify news staffs? Should the media make these “special efforts”? Why?

1The principal author of this case study, Olivia Jeske, wrote this as a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where she had a “Blugold Fellowship”—a sort of Affirmative Action program for bright students from rural areas.