Why The Times couldn't resist Jayson Blair

Why The Times couldn’t resist Jayson Blair

This passage from the New York Times story on the fraudulent reporter Jayson Blair unintentionally captures the essence of the scandal:

Two wounded marines lay side by side at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. One of them, Jayson Blair wrote, “questioned the legitimacy of his emotional pain as he considered his comrade in the next bed, a runner who had lost part of his leg to a land mine in Iraq.” [Italics added.]
The scene, as described by Mr. Blair in an article that The Times published on April 19, was as false as it was riveting. In fact, it was false from its very first word, its uppercase dateline, which told readers that the reporter was in Bethesda and had witnessed the scene. He had not.
Still, the image was so compelling, the words so haunting, that The Times featured one of the soldier’s comments as its Quotation of the Day, appearing on Page 2. [Italics added.]

To the cultural leftists who edit The Times, anything that casts a bitterly negative light on the United States armed forces under President Bush is so “riveting,” so “compelling,” so “haunting” that naturally they had to feature it prominently—despite the fact that the reporter’s veracity had already been seriously challenged by several Times editors. So ensconced in their prejudices are The Times’ honchos that even now, as they are bringing this humiliating scandal to light, it doesn’t occur to them that a story about a wounded GI questioning the “legitimacy of his emotional pain” would not necessarily be “compelling” to everyone. They are still like the proverbial New York liberal who couldn’t understand how Reagan had been elected president, since no one he knew had voted for him.

The story on Blair is a revelation of the inner workings of the liberal establishment, in which blind animus against Bush (or whoever the conservative demon of the moment happens to be) and a religious fervor to increase the number of blacks in high positions form a perfect nexus of intellectual corruption.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 12, 2003 05:47 PM | Send

Comments

This comment by Rod Dreher on the centrality of “diversity” in the Blair affair is worth reading:

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_05_11_corner-archive.asp#008469

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 12, 2003 7:48 PM

Times’ top editor said that diversity is more important than quality.

In 2001 New York Times executive editor Howell Raines addressed the National Association of Black Journalists, and mentioned Jayson Blair as an example of the Times’ efforts to hire the best and brightest young minority reporters. He said: “This campaign has made our staff better and, MORE IMPORTANTLY, more diverse.” [Emphasis added.]

http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2003/0509.asp

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 13, 2003 1:54 AM

So am I wrong in assuming that Fox News is the bastion of truth in media?

Posted by: David P. Greenberg on May 13, 2003 9:40 AM

“So am I wrong in assuming that Fox News is the bastion of truth in media?”

In a word, Yes

Posted by: Miss. Marple on May 13, 2003 2:21 PM

> To the cultural leftists who edit The Times, anything that casts a bitterly negative light on the United States armed forces under President Bush is so “riveting,” ///

Actually while taht *sounds* like it is critical of the military and perhaps Jason Blair meant it that way in order to catch the eye of his top editors, what he has the soldier saying actually is something more like: “How can I complain?” In other words, other people were wounded more. It’s probably loosely plagiarized from something he read that was originally printed during World War II. You didn’t read the article carefully enough.

Posted by: Sammy Finkelman on May 19, 2003 2:27 PM

While there is room for different interpretations here, I think the image of a wounded marine questioning “the legitimacy of his emotional pain,” apart from being unlikely on the face of it, comes across as a typical NY Times attempt to make its readers feel negative about America.

In this connection, I just came upon this quote from Roger Scruton’s The West and the Rest which, though it deals with the universities, applies as well to the unceasing propagandistic enterprise of the major liberal media:

“A single theme runs through the humanities as they are taught in European and American universities: the illegitimacy of Western civilization, and the artificiality of the distinctions on which it has been based…. Western civilization is simply the record of that oppressive process, and the principal purpose of studying it is to deconstruct its claim to our membership.”

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 19, 2003 2:37 PM