Jessica
JRN 201 – Section #14582
Mar. 25, 2016
Honors Blog Post X
Jessica
JRN 201 – Section #14582
Mar. 25, 2016
Honors Blog Post X
Reflections on Jayson Blair
Jayson Blair began as an intern and later through what seemed to be eager and persistent journalism, landed a position at the New York Times' national reporting staff. However, his inaccuracies and questionable whereabouts and spending led to the suspicion of editor, Jonathan Landman. Landman became the most vocal advocate against Blair's promotion. Yet, a series of miscommunication resulted in the continuous growth of fraud and plagiarism in Blair's articles.
In the later parts of his Times career, Blair's inaccuracies become sloppier and gained negative attention from several readers and departments. Thus, effectively causing them to lose trust from the Times' readers as Blair wrote a sizable amount of stories and leads.
From what i understood of the article, no one was fired, Blair himself simply resigned. But the consequences did not stop there. After having a four-year long trail of journalism fraud in their wake, the staff is striving to do its utmost to regain the trust of their readers and scrutinizing the work of their journalist and staff.
Nonetheless, this system is still a work in progress, as Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said "it can interfere with the relationship of creativity that you need in a newsroom".
As far as how I feel of Blair's guilt, I hold him accountable for his actions. A few inaccuracies is understandable but intentionally lying and making up stories regardless of the supposed pressure, is unforgivable. Especially since it was a repeated behavior (therefore a decision) and he was still taking in more stories than his colleagues and managers were telling him to take on. The editors too are just as guilty for not communicating as allowing this to go on for years and it seemed to me regardless of their statement, are guilty of overlooking some of his actions solely to diversify their staff.
Jayson Blair began as an intern and later through what seemed to be eager and persistent journalism, landed a position at the New York Times' national reporting staff. However, his inaccuracies and questionable whereabouts and spending led to the suspicion of editor, Jonathan Landman. Landman became the most vocal advocate against Blair's promotion. Yet, a series of miscommunication resulted in the continuous growth of fraud and plagiarism in Blair's articles.
In the later parts of his Times career, Blair's inaccuracies become sloppier and gained negative attention from several readers and departments. Thus, effectively causing them to lose trust from the Times' readers as Blair wrote a sizable amount of stories and leads.
From what i understood of the article, no one was fired, Blair himself simply resigned. But the consequences did not stop there. After having a four-year long trail of journalism fraud in their wake, the staff is striving to do its utmost to regain the trust of their readers and scrutinizing the work of their journalist and staff.
Nonetheless, this system is still a work in progress, as Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said "it can interfere with the relationship of creativity that you need in a newsroom".
As far as how I feel of Blair's guilt, I hold him accountable for his actions. A few inaccuracies is understandable but intentionally lying and making up stories regardless of the supposed pressure, is unforgivable. Especially since it was a repeated behavior (therefore a decision) and he was still taking in more stories than his colleagues and managers were telling him to take on. The editors too are just as guilty for not communicating as allowing this to go on for years and it seemed to me regardless of their statement, are guilty of overlooking some of his actions solely to diversify their staff.
