Ex-Times Reporter Tells Observer He 'Couldn't Stop Laughing' About Correction of One Deception

5/21/03 11:29AM

Former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair said he "couldn't stop laughing" when the newspaper corrected his fraudulent description of an American POW's home in West Virginia, according to excerpts of an interview with the New York Observer.

Charming.
In one of his few interviews since resigning from the Times on May 1, Blair told the Observer that he "fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism" with his reporting.

So much for the most brilliant people in journalism. I expect that once the most brilliant people in journalism get their Nigerian funds, they'll go for early retirement.

In a brazen act of deception, Blair wrote under a dateline from Palestine, W.Va., about the family of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, a POW rescued in Iraq. He described the family's home as overlooking "tobacco fields and cattle pastures." The porch overlooks no such thing and no member of the Lynch family remembers talking to Blair, the Times said in an extensive investigation into his work.

They made one fifty-cent phone call to the Lynch family, and wrote it off as a business expense.

The Times found fraud, plagiarism and inaccuracies in 36 of 73 articles examined between October and April.

NO information is better than bad information.

Newsweek has reported that Blair signed with literary agent David Vigliano to market his story for possible book and movie deals.

Any person who buys this book participates in Mr. Blair's deception and shares his moral guilt.

According to excerpts from the Observer, Blair said his deceptions stemmed from personal problems.

Wah! Wah! Wah! Yes, Mr. Swiss-cheese Brain, lying is a personal problem. Guess what, buddy? I got problems of my own. Personal problems are an excuse, but seldom a reason.

"I was either going to kill myself or I was going to kill the journalist persona," he said. "So Jayson Blair the human being could live, Jayson Blair the journalist had to die."

Bad choice, in my cold-hearted bitch opinion

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Bite me.