Former New York Times and Boston Globe Reporter Jayson Blair
There’s an interesting discussion happening among news librarians concerning what to do with Jayson Blair’s articles in their archives.
Jayson’s work is under investigation by the New York Times and Boston Globe because he seems to have invented people to interview for his work. Christopher Newton was caught this past fall making similar errors in his Associated Press stories.
This discussion pops up whenever a journalist is investigated for plagiarism, falsifying interviews, and/or making errors regularly in his/her reporting that leads, eventually, to some sort of disciplinary action and sometimes dismissal from the staff of the news organization.
Some news librarians remove the stories in question from their archives and others append a correction or note to the stories. Yeah, who cares, right? Well, removing stories with questionable sources can erase the historical record. It can also jeopardize the news organization’s reputation when readers think there’s a coverup going on about errors that were published or broadcast that have now magically disappeared. Not everyone reads the corrections or notes appended to articles, so it’s possible that the errors could be reprinted. At least one news organization feels that it is improper to sell articles that are known to come from questionable origins through its archive.
Check out Newslib for more.
