http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/05/21/blair.ap/index.html NEW YORK (AP) -- Former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair said he "couldn't stop laughing" when the newspaper corrected his fraudulent description of an American POW's home in West Virginia, according to excerpts of an interview with the New York Observer. "That's my favorite, just because the description was so far off from the reality. And the way they described it in The Times story -- someone read a portion of it to me -- I couldn't stop laughing," Blair said in an interview scheduled for publication Wednesday. The newspaper made excerpts available to The Associated Press on Tuesday. In one of his few interviews since resigning from the Times on May 1, Blair told the Observer that he "fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism" with his reporting. In a brazen act of deception, Blair wrote under a dateline from Palestine, West Virginia, about the family of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, a POW rescued in Iraq. He described the family's home as overlooking "tobacco fields and cattle pastures." The porch overlooks no such thing and no member of the Lynch family remembers talking to Blair, the Times said in an extensive investigation into his work. The Times found fraud, plagiarism and inaccuracies in 36 of 73 articles examined between October and April. Newsweek has reported that Blair signed with literary agent David Vigliano to market his story for possible book and movie deals. The magazine, citing friends of the ex-reporter, also reported that Blair had sought treatment for substance abuse. According to excerpts from the Observer, Blair said his deceptions stemmed from personal problems. "I was either going to kill myself or I was going to kill the journalist persona," he said. "So Jayson Blair the human being could live, Jayson Blair the journalist had to die." Can't the Times sue him or something? This is ridiculous that he's enjoying the fraud and is going to profit off of it.
Wrong forum....(now) Is this really controversial? Is there anyone who thinks Jayson Blair isn't an ass? Yeah, I had no idea which forum was appropriate for this.
Jayson Blair is most definitely an ass, and he is an ass laughing all the way to the bank via book and movie deals. I will refuse to read the book and view the movie.
He won't get another job in journalism... and he won't need one. I'm kind of surprised he is acting like an ass though. I thought he would go for sympathy and start talking about his problems. But laughing at the NYT is just gonna make people mad.
I would think that the New York Times could sue him and win. If they did, journalism wouldn't pay enough anyway. He'd need a book and movie deal to cover the damages he's wrought.
The New York Times can and should sue him. And I don't mean a weak suit, I mean a mega million dollar suit to shut him up. They should literally sue him for Hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to papers reputation, and hold his @ss up in court for year and then file a different type of lawsuit. Destroy him.
They could sue him (you can sue anyone) and probably win. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of action. But, I don't think they could find "mega million" damages. The reputation of the paper hasn't suffered that much. If anything, he helped thier readership, both through the embellished stories and the current publicity. The best they could probably do is breach of contract. The funny thing is, they would have a hard time with a fraud case, since he didn't submit travel expenses. The fact he usually wrote columns could come into play as well. They are supposed to be 'color' pieces, and usually have a disclaimer about 'The views of the author do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher...' I'm sure their fear is that if they open up the legal can of worms, they could bring up libel suits against themselves. It would be easy to make the case that they have a responsibility to check the stories, expenses, etc., and should have known something was up. I'm sure they would rather he just fade away.
I have a buddy who says he grew up with Mr. Blair and even he thinks Jayson is an ass. I guess they still keep up and my friend, Sullivan, encouraged Blair to use the excuse that although he made some mistakes, at least he doesn't drink as much as Sullivan.. That guy (Blair) has definitely made himself quite the snug fitting bed..
I don't see how people hearing that a reporter lied about stories is going to make them want to buy more papers. If he gets a book or movie deal they could say that he purposely ruined the paper's reputation for a payday.
