The Magazine

New York Times, PETA, and Yale.

May 12, 2003, Vol. 8, No. 34
Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts

Correctamundo

The Howell Raines-era New York Times accelerated its reputational tailspin last Thursday when 27-year-old national desk correspondent Jayson Blair abruptly resigned from the paper amidst a mini-uproar over apparently faked reporting and plagiarism. Immediately at issue was Blair's April 26 front page story on the family of Army mechanic Edward Anguiano, killed in action during the liberation of Iraq: Specialist Anguiano's mother said Blair had never visited her home or talked to her on the phone, though his Times story described the place and quoted her in detail. How could this be? As the editor of the San Antonio Express-News complained, much of Blair's material had been lifted from a recently published piece by Express-News reporter Macarena Hernandez.

But wait, there may be more. Ominously enough, the Times itself, reporting on the matter in last Friday's edition, quotes a promise from executive editor Raines that he is "also reviewing other journalistic work [Jayson Blair] has done for the Times," and "we will do what is necessary to be sure the record is kept straight." According to Washington Post media correspondent Howie Kurtz, there'll be a lot of work involved in such a review: Blair has been involved in a number of previous controversies "and the paper has run 50 corrections on his stories."

Which is an interesting little statistic. We suspect our first reaction was the same as any disinterested scholar of American journalistic institutions: "Whoa! How many stories do you get to screw up at the Times and still keep your job?" Our second reaction was, let's fire up the Nexis database and find out.

To read more, you must be a Weekly Standard Subscriber

We're Sorry,

the rest of this article is available only to subscribers.

You have two options:

Subscribing today will provide you with immediate, complete access to the current issue, as well as to all back issues on the site. Each week you will be able to read articles from the newest issue even before print copies are mailed!

Privacy Policy