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May 12, 2003
media carnival
What did I say about not trusting the media? A big thumbs-down for Jayson Blair of the New York Times and his efforts to further sensationalize the already sickening media coverage in this country. It's why I don't watch Fox news, or any DC television stations. It's all crap. In the morning I watch the much calmer Baltimore NBC affiliate, since it doesn't predict my doom every morning. Just mellow Baltimore stuff. Otherwise, it's just Enterprise, Buffy, Angel, Stargate and Yahoo news. It's all I can trust these days, and keeps the anxiety levels low.
Blah blah blah corporate media driven by hype and money. More purges of the false to come, I predict. Sure, he's a scapegoat for the widespread falsehoods spewed in newspapers and airwaves today, but not because he's black. Regardless, if the race card hasn't been played yet, it will be. Enter media whores Johnnie Cochran and Al Sharpton stage left.
Watch less television, interact more with people. I want to interact more with him and him. Wooof.
Posted by jimbo at May 12, 2003 10:34 PM
Comments
He got away with it for so long because he played the race card--
Posted by: beenhexed at May 13, 2003 12:07 AM
Another proud alumnus of the University of Maryland.
Posted by: Chrisafer at May 13, 2003 2:29 PM
While the lengthy NYT article notes that Blair was hired as an intern as an effort to diversify their newsroom, it vehemently denies that Blair's promotions were based on 'playing the race card.' And contrary to the comment below, the same article suggests that it was Blair's charm and talent for fraud along with the innate trust that the NYT places on its reporters which allowed the deceptions to continue, not his race. Nowhere does it suggest that the NYT overlooked or downplayed his reporting mistakes for the sake of diversifying their workforce or advancing more minorities. Jimbo, if your predictions are true that Cochran and Sharpton will come howling to the fore, it will be for two reasons. First, it will be because the Right will use this incident, not simply as the story of one unethical man, but as further proof that affirmative action and diversity programs only harm our institutions. (To wit, CNN has already suggested that affirmative action is to blame.) And secondly, it will be because some of us are simply too willing to implicate Blair's race in his wrongdoing, even where no real connection exists. And that, I believe, is still worth calling attention to, even if it is Sharpton or Cochran sounding the alarm.
Posted by: Jon at May 13, 2003 3:26 PM