Disgraced former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair will be addressing a Journalism Ethics Institute in Virginia next month.
As amazingly reported by Mediaite Tuesday:
Hard as it may be to believe, one of this decade’s biggest disgraces has been asked to present a speech on the very subject that was his downfall...Blair will travel to Washington and Lee next Friday to give a speech entitled “Lessons Learned.”
The Rockridge Weekly went into greater detail:
Blair resigned from the Times after an investigation found that he had plagiarized and fabricated major portions of stories that he had written during four years with the Times. Some of the stories that he covered in this manner were such major news events as the D.C. sniper case and the rescue of POW Jessica Lynch.
“Inviting Jayson Blair to keynote this institute was definitely a departure for us,” said Edward Wasserman, the Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at W&L. “In the past, we've brought heroes to Lexington, people of great accomplishment and stature, such as Hodding Carter, Helen Thomas and Lowell Bergman, and people who stood up to pressure in the name of principled journalism, such as Matt Cooper and my W&L faculty colleague Toni Locy, both of whom faced jail time because they refused to give up the names of sources they had promised to protect.
“Jayson Blair, on the other hand, was at the center of one of the signature journalism scandals of this still-new century, and there's no way to imagine that his role in it was heroic,” Wasserman continued. “When I approached him with the invitation, he said that although he has not spoken publicly about the affair that led to his dismissal from the New York Times, this might be the right time and right occasion. My expectation is that he'll talk not just about his own susceptibilities, but about the pressures and temptations that might induce ambitious and talented young journalists elsewhere in the business to do the wrong thing.”
Maybe he should end with Columbia University's new journalism ethics hip-hop hit, "J-School State of Mind."
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.
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Perfect Choice
October 28, 2009 - 09:28 ET by iveseenitallHow apropos! Blair is the epitome of "journalistic ethics" as it exists today. What better choice than a cheater, liar, and affirmative action failure to address a pack of modern "liberals"?
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"
Next??
October 28, 2009 - 09:29 ET by slickwillie2001For the next lecture in this series, the institute will invite Bob Woodward to discuss the use of a seance as an interviewing technique.
rumor
October 28, 2009 - 09:32 ET by soosanis there any truth to the rumor that Mike Barnacle is going to MC?
Ummm...
October 28, 2009 - 09:36 ET by heldmywIt's like inviting Jeffrey Dahmer to keynote a vegan convention.
Hey, has someone seen Keith?
October 28, 2009 - 14:02 ET by CO2MakerI saw him last night. He said he was going up to his room and take a bath.
Or a hooker preaching
October 29, 2009 - 01:38 ET by rockyracoonOr a hooker preaching abstinence.
Facts are like kryptonite to the liberal.
I have no problem with
October 28, 2009 - 09:37 ET by Roger the ShrubberI have no problem with this. If this loser can show these young journalism students what happens when you cheat, I am all for it.
Of course, he might also show these students how to cheat POORLY..... :)
I agree Rog...this guy, if
October 28, 2009 - 11:14 ET by bassndudeI agree Rog...this guy, if he will be honest, may be able to clue these young students into what not to do. One thing tho, if he decides to show them how to cheat, he should also show them the proper technique for standing on street corners with a sign and a tin cup....
Save a SeAL, club a liberal/troll!!
Please, just because he got caught doesn't mean
October 28, 2009 - 15:19 ET by WhoIsJohnGalthe's capable of imparting wisdom on what's right.
Do you suggest that we start adding convicted bank robbers to the MBA lecture circuit at Ivy League schools? Or perhaps convicted rapists to give lectures at the local seminary?
Were there not enough honest, successful journalists to speak to the students? What happens when you get caught is that you should get ostracized and shunned, not applauded and asked to speak to crowds at schools of higher learning.
Liberal-think...it's a never-ending list of twisted logic.
Amen. Why not ask Blair's
October 29, 2009 - 04:35 ET by HockeyKidAmen. Why not ask Blair's editor to speak on the consequences of journalistic malpractice? Setting Blair up as a speaker just tells the kids that everything works out in the end, even if you take the lowest of professional low roads.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
M. Renyard visits the Chicken Co-op
October 28, 2009 - 09:47 ET by CO2MakerGood evening, my friends and potential former coworkers. I see there are a lot of foxy hens in the audience. Foxy, hens--get it? But seriously, I want you to know I'm a big breast and thigh man, too. Ha ah. Rim shot, please.
Really serious now. I'm here to be a co-presenter with Mr. Dan Rahther, who will discuss "How not to get TANGled in political reporting and if it happens to you, how to blame the subordinates." Later, we'll be joined by Rigobertu Menchu who will explain how to win a Nobel prize by making up stories. And we'll also have a teleconference contribution by Oprah on how to promote an up-and-coming alternative author who is, in fact, just makes things up from what he imagines someone else's life would have been. And for our keynote speech, we'll hear from Janet Cooke. I'm sure you remember her story, "Jimmy's World," about an eight-year-old heroin addict, for which she won the Pulitzer in 1980. Yep, faked, too. So let's get started with today's seminars, brought to you by Katherine Weymouth andMarcus Brauchli and their exclusive WaPo Lobbyist Salons.
Thenk yew, thenk yew."
Nicely done. The Media
October 29, 2009 - 04:36 ET by HockeyKidNicely done. The Media Hall of Shame.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
He's the one that got caught
October 28, 2009 - 09:50 ET by dboI'm sure Blair has a promising career ahead of him as a climate "scientist".
I read that as
October 28, 2009 - 09:57 ET by CO2Maker"climate scientologist"!
Yeah, see, when we produce
October 29, 2009 - 04:37 ET by HockeyKidYeah, see, when we produce too much CO2, Xenu gets really pissed and makes the volcanos heat up and thus the globe warms.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
Oh, The Left
October 28, 2009 - 10:05 ET by BondPlainBondThey do so enjoy celebrating and rewarding the frauds, liars, law-breakers, and all those of the unsavory underbelly that seem pervasive throughout that political ilk.
Let's have Ted Kennedy lead
October 28, 2009 - 10:10 ET by wiwfLet's have Ted Kennedy lead a discussion on how to drive home drunk next!
The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy
You laugh, but just remember the day, back in 1991
October 28, 2009 - 10:15 ET by CO2MakerWhen Teddy "Waitress Sandwich with Watercress Garnish" Kennedy was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and interrog-- interviewed Clarence Thomas about purported sexual misconduct and, gasp, movies he rented.
You will have to
October 28, 2009 - 11:36 ET by kangarooYou will have to book Rick 'run em over' Sanchez for that gig. I don't think Ted can make it.
Ha, Ha, Ha ∞ JMHO,
October 28, 2009 - 12:38 ET by DoktorFrankenHa, Ha, Ha ∞
JMHO, you understand.
If Saul Alinsky owned a news channel it would be MSNBC. ---- Me
Journalism Ethics Institute in Virginia
October 28, 2009 - 12:53 ET by borderplexMaybe "Journalism Ethics Institute in Virginia" is code for a meeting of Journalaholics Anonymous. It is common, I understand, for members of 12 Step programs to "tell their story" to other members and reveal just how they overcame their addictions. You don't suppose it's possible that Jayson Blair has had an epiphany and became a champion of the right, do you?
Journalism Ethics Institute
October 28, 2009 - 15:35 ET by CO2MakerIs that where they learn how to jouronate in public?
I guess if they bill it appropriately...
October 28, 2009 - 18:47 ET by SlyrrIf they bring him in and put him under a huge banner that reads:
'This man is a lying sack of filth who disgraced journalism and he's here to warn you to never, never, NEVER do the stupid things that he did so you don't wind up a loser like HIM.'
Then it would be OK.
Of course he is qualified on ethics
October 28, 2009 - 19:05 ET by TheHistorianHis ethics are no worse than those of Barack Hussein Obama, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, when it comes to telling people what is in (his) health care bill. Or those of Tim Geithner, the tax cheat who now supervises the Department of the Treasury. Or those of Eric Holder, the weasel who arranged the Marc Rich pardon. Need I go on? Cass Sunstein? Ezekiel Emmanuel? Rahm Emmanuel? John Holdren?
Or how about Dan Dan Rather who presented the Mary Alice David Distinguished Lecture in Journalism?
Find me an honest liberal, and I will find you a dead one.
"What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."
G. W. F. Hegel
→ His Master's House?
October 28, 2009 - 19:29 ET by Cool ArrowWhat's the big deal? Others got away with it.
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country - Kahlil Gibran
Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" - George Bernard Shaw
LYDSEXICS UNTIE!
next year's speaker
October 28, 2009 - 20:29 ET by TylerPDawgsRule.Dan Rather should be next year's speaker.
next year's speaker
October 28, 2009 - 20:33 ET by TylerPMy Master's House????????????? I guess this fool will be the next poverty pimp.
Maybe not a poverty pimp,
October 29, 2009 - 04:51 ET by HockeyKidMaybe not a poverty pimp, but definitely a race baiter. Too bad he was born in Columbia, MD (an upper-middle-class liberal bastion) to a federal executive and a school administrator--not exactly sharecropper roots with major hurdles to overcome. Oh, WAIT: he blames it all on racism at the NYT and his own previous cocaine "problem" (though that doesn't explain why he did exactly the same things at the University of MD paper). Yep, he really had a hard row to hoe.
He now bills himself as a "life coach". Say, don't coaches need to have winning records before they're worth hiring?
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me