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Jayson Blair

• August 23 -- "Undermining" Swift Vets, Ruing "False Information" on Blogs, Talk Radio
The Times insists that the "most serious contentions" of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "have been undermined by official records and conflicting accounts." Co-author Adam Nagourney frets in a related story about "this era when so much unsubstantiated or even false information can reach the public through so many different forums, be it blogs or talk-show radio."

• March 15 -- The Times Tackles Blair's Book
The Times outsources the review of Jayson Blair's book to Slate's Jack Shafer--a smart move, as Shafer focuses on the sins of Blair, not on the paper's flaws.

• March 12 -- Jayson Blair Accuses the Times of "Anti-Conservative" Bias
Jayson Blair goes on Bill O'Reilly's show and charges the Times with a "pro-liberal, anti-conservative social change agenda."

• February 27 -- Jayson’s Back…And In the Bookstore
Times media reporter Jacques Steinberg reported briefly on the forthcoming Jayson Blair memoir. Executive Editor Bill Keller declared: "We don't intend to respond to Jayson or his book.” In the next sentence, the Times responded. “Yesterday Catherine J. Mathis, a spokeswoman for The Times, said: ‘The events of last spring were deeply painful to The Times and its staff…’”

• October 27 -- Times Appoints First-Ever Public Editor
The Times announces the appointment of a former Life magazine editor, Daniel Okrent, as the paper's ombudsman. A colleague of Okrent remarks: "He loves fairness and accuracy." Times Watch hopes that turns out to be true.

• September 26 -- “Stop Jayson” Memo Writer Promoted
Jonathan Landman, Times metropolitan editor (and author of the “stop Jayson” memo) has a new job.

• August 8 -- Gerald Who?
Condoleezza Rice spoke to a convention of black journalists in Dallas, and media reporter Jacques Steinberg delivered a straightforward account. Yet Steinberg makes no mention of the afternoon speaker: Gerald Boyd, the former Times managing editor who resigned with Howell Raines.

• July 31 -- Will ‘Siegal’ Soothe Times Egos?
The Times releases the Siegal Report, an account of its failures in the wake of the Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg controversies. It includes a note from panel member and far-left activist Roger Wilkins, defending the paper’s “aggressive” diversity quest and bashing America: “The Times newsroom is an American place and is thus touched--as are virtually all American places--by our culture, including some remnants of hostility to minorities and women.”

• July 14 -- Raines Says He Was Pushed
Former Times executive editor Howell Raines gives his side of the story on Charlie Rose, discussing his 21-month tenure as a “change agent” attempting to shake up the paper’s “lethargic culture.” He doesn’t lack for self-esteem.

• May 27 -- Nothing To Bragg About
Suspended Times reporter Rick Bragg says he’s a scapegoat for Jayson Blair and is quitting the paper.

• May 22 -- Q&A with WILLIAM MCGOWAN
Author of “COLORING THE NEWS,” a 2001 book (newly in paperback) which made many direct criticisms of how the quest for “diversity” was corrupting Times reporting. Times Watch talked by phone with Mr. McGowan.

• May 19 -- “Pinch” Flinches From Owning Up to Blair Facts
The Times zealous diversity quest didn’t start with Howell Raines: Publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger was on the bandwagon long before. Will Sulzberger now take responsibility for management’s coddling of Blair?

• May 16 -- Better Late Than Never
The Times lets the author of the diversity-critical “Coloring the News” have his say—two years after the book’s publication.

• May 15 -- Raines Comes Clean—But Soils Times Reputation
At a testy staff meeting, Times executive editor (and self-professed guilty white liberal) Howell Raines admits he gave reporter Jayson Blair “one chance too many” because he was black.

• May 15 -- A Tale of Two Plagiarists: Raines Scraped Mike Barnicle, But Sheltered Blair
“Public respect for newspapering is wounded when rules that would be enforced with doctrinal ferocity among the mass of journalists are lightened for a star who has great value to the paper.”—Howell Raines, lecturing the Boston Globe on plagiarizing columnist Mike Barnicle in 1998

• May 14 -- Hardball's Foul Ball? by Liz Swasey
Some media critics are now suggesting that assigning a role to "affirmative action" in the Jayson Blair fiasco is outside the bounds of respectable opinion.

• May 14 -- Howell Raines’ Theatre of the Absurd
Times staffers will pack a Manhattan movie house today for the latest installment of the “Blair Watch Project”—top management will take questions from seething Times news staff. Do journalists now see that the media’s diversity quest is damaging reporters’ reputations?

• May 13 -- Credibility Chasm on 43rd Street
Not even the liberal media trust the Times anymore: Liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen comments on how the Jayson Blair plagiarism fiasco has damaged the Times credibility. 

• May 13 -- No Friends to the Left for the Times?
Even left-wing outlets are taking on the Times—and making conservative arguments to do so. 

• May 12 -- The Times Jayson Blair Apology: Is It Enough?
“Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception” blares the front page of Sunday’s New York Times, introducing a 7,200 word examination of the paper’s chain of failures in the case of reporter Jayson Blair, who resigned from the paper after his plagiarism came to light two weeks ago. 

• May 9 -- Raines: Diversity “More Important” Than Better Journalism
Howell Raines praised the hiring of future plagiarist reporter Jayson Blair: “This campaign has made our staff better and, more importantly, more diverse.” 

• May 8 -- The End of the Blair Affair
The saga of plagiarizing Times reporter Jayson Blair. 

• May 5 -- For Once We Agree
“We have good reason to believe we've published flawed journalism."—Times executive editor Howell Raines regarding the plagiarism controversy surrounding former reporter Jayson Blair, in the New York Daily News.

• May 2 -- Blair’s Snitch Project
Times reporter Jayson Blair resigns after being accused of plagiarism--the editorial desk overlooking warning signs that not all Blair’s work was “fit to print.”