The Jayson Blair Case: At the New York Times, the Spin Cycle Never Ends

A Different Drummer ^ | 23 May 2003 | Nicholas Stix

[browardchad]

The only sure way to separate fact from fiction is to ban all anonymous sources.

If that happens, newspapers will be reduced to four pages -- with advertising.

[mrustow]

Great find. It shows the all too obvious downside of preferences. Also, if Blair wasn't a sociopath when he started his career (he probably was), the red carpet treatment he received would have been just about enough to make him one. He learned from experience that he could do no wrong.

The Affirmative Action Damage Control team has been working overtime on this one. I saw a New York magazine article on Blair that called anyone who talked about affirmative action a "hater."

[mrustow]

You're right. "Anonymous sources" is a problematic area. But within a newspaper, if the veracity of a story depending on "anonymous sources" is challenged, the editor has to demand the names from the reporter. If the reporter still refuses, then the editor knows he's lying.

My beef with "anonymous sources" is that they tend to be powerful people who are s[pinning the story to their benefit, and in some cases, old friends of the reporter or editor. Meanwhile, media people love to sacrifice real whistleblowers, because they're just "the little people." Ever see the movie, Absence of Malice?

That's why people with crucial details that correct stories clam up, and mind their own business.

[TaxRelief]

I  hate affirmative action. Calling me a hater in this case would be accurate, but rude.
But who expects manners?

[mrustow]

I know, I know. Here you have people who have unleashed, and keep flowing the most incredible racism and sexism against heterosexual, white men. Pot, kettle.

[TaxRelief]

...and against conservative men or women or even children.

[mrustow]

And don't forget the Christians.

[mrustow]

BTTT

[mrustow]

FYI; bump to list.

[mrustow]

BTW, Peacerose. I just tried, unsuccessfully, to link to this post from the Times' reader discussion section. Do the NYT thread nannies really have a block on FR?!

[Kenny Bunk]

Now hold on a minute. If the all-too-obviously incompetent AAA (Affirmative Action Clymer) P(olice)C(hief)Moose, Ph.D. can be in charge of the Sniper investigation, does it not make at least a modicum of Politically Correct sense to appoint an equally incompetent-in-his-field AAA reporter to report it?

You see, that way the truth of PC Moose's, Ph.D. stark, raving bumbling will never be fully known. It doesn't matter that much, as only 3 or 4 more people were killed until PC Moose's Ph.D. long-suffering staff were able to leak a true description, which enabled a truck driver to set up the arrest by competent officers not under the AAA PC Moose's jurisdiction.

Lucky thing, too. PC Moose, Ph.D. and a group of equally inept AAA police officers had to attend a PC Diversity banquet over that weekend, where they all received awards.

BTW There are recruiting firms which specialize (for fat fees) in transferring spectacularly incompetent AAAs to head up small town Police and Fire Departments, even in far-off DownEast Maine, where minority groups have been unremarked since the Civil War.

But even this has a bright side, my friends. The incompetent AAA Public Safety officials can keep the equally incompetent AAA Public Education officials company at the interminable banquets where they bemoan discrimination and give each other awards, which are often incompetently spelled, due to having been purchased from AAA set-aside contractors

Adios, America.

[mrustow]

Now, Kenny Bunk, you know better than to question the qualifications of Chief Moose. (As everyone knows) He's a national hero and a Ph.D., which I am not and not, so I have no say on the matter. And he's black, which I am also not.

Granted, he did get some folks killed who could have been saved, but hey, that's the price of racial progress.

P.S. Was the honest description of the perps really only broadcast via leaks? And was Moose really getting a diversity award while people were still dying? And do you have anything about those recruiting firms? Inquiring minds want to know, even if they are the minds of males lacking Ph.D.s or hero status or sufficient melanin.

[Vetnet]

This just in:
THE NEW YORK TIMES has found a replacement that guarantees to bring them to an EVEN HIGHER LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE than they were known for, before all this trouble occurred:

"YES SIR MR RAINES, I'LL GET RIGHT ON IT!!!"

[mrustow]

I love it!

[mrustow]

BTTT

[Ciexyz]

I wondered about the "hea culpa" typo.

[mcenedo]

'Now,' he said, 'there are times when you look at the front-page meeting and ... literally three-quarters of the people deciding what's on the front page are not-so-closeted homosexuals.'

If you listed the top 100 people at the Slime, how many are gay? If the Slime has 2 or 3 times the number of gays as the rest of society, no big deal. If it's more than that, they should admit it.

[mrustow]

I think that may have been a pun.

[GSWarrior]

If your explanation is correct, why do you suppose the defenders of affirmative action don't bring it up?

That's a good question. The defenders of affirmative action seem to have done a good job of portraying Blair as the sole bad guy. It could be that AA folks don't want to be seen as attacking homos, a group that is even more sheltered from reality by the constraints of political correctness then are blacks.

[mrustow]

If we take gay activists' numbers, whereby ten percent of society is gay, three times that is a big deal to me. On the other hand, if we take the true numbers, which are more like 2-5%, then 6-15% isn't such a big deal. On the other hand, 75% ...