First Draft by Tim Porter

Blair-ly True

I have been waiting for someone to fact check Jayson Blair's book and find the inevitable: That Blair lifted some of it from somewhere.

Sure enough, Carter Nelsen writes in Romenesko's letters:

" ... it took me less than 20 seconds to run across the opening paragraph of Chapter 6, which touches on that summer internship:

'It was the summer of 1997. I was in the glass-walled office of Louisa Williams, the assistant managing editor in charge of recruitment, hiring and interns at The Boston Globe. I was about halfway into the twelve-week internship. Editors had been praising me for being enterprising, intense and coming to work early and staying late, but I could tell that this conversation was not going to be pretty.'

"Which immediately brought to mind the opening paragraphs of a feature story that ran in the Globe on May 22:

"'It was the summer of 1997, and Jayson T. Blair was at the center of a newsroom controversy. Blair, then 21, was sitting in the glass-walled office of assistant managing editor Louisa Williams. The door was closed. Just six weeks into a 12-week summer internship, Blair had already cut a considerable swath through The Boston Globe. In some respects, he was exactly what editors look for in a reporter: nervy, enterprising, prolific, eager to arrive early and stay late.'" (Emphasis added)

Enough said.

Posted by Tim Porter at March 10, 2004 08:16 AM