Sunday, December 12, 2004
Jayson Blair spikes blog
Looks like disgraced former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair has stopped blogging.
Blair's blog, once found on his Web site at www.jayson-blair.com/blog.html, launched last summer, apparently after his publisher New Millennium Press went under after taking a bath on his book about his tenure at the New York Times, Burning Down My Masters' House. (Between the Times and his publisher, that makes two houses burned down.)
The blog's death is unfortunate since it made for some interesting reading between his thinking on later allegations of plagiarism and other journalistic sins by other reporters, columnists and editors, and his musings on mental illness.
The new site -- the third version since it was launched -- seems to obscure more than it explains, and states:
The new site's About section says "Jayson has made it through the fire and now runs a company, Azure Entertainment Corporation, is the vice president of another company and has founded the Azure Mental Health Project."
Presumably, "another company" is the same unnamed corporation where he holds the post of senior editor, and is the firm preparing the new paperback edition of his book.
The secrecy is odd. One would think that in the wake of the secrets and lies that ended his career, he would be open -- or at least try to appear to be open -- about basic facts.
One other interesting item found on Blair's revamped site:
A quick search turned up the following item from the Sept. 17, 2004 edition of the New York Daily News:
Anyone want a copy of Jayson Blair's book, cheap? I didn't think so.
Blair's blog, once found on his Web site at www.jayson-blair.com/blog.html, launched last summer, apparently after his publisher New Millennium Press went under after taking a bath on his book about his tenure at the New York Times, Burning Down My Masters' House. (Between the Times and his publisher, that makes two houses burned down.)
The blog's death is unfortunate since it made for some interesting reading between his thinking on later allegations of plagiarism and other journalistic sins by other reporters, columnists and editors, and his musings on mental illness.
The new site -- the third version since it was launched -- seems to obscure more than it explains, and states:
Blair is now president of Azure Entertainment and vice president and senior editor of a small California publishing house. "Burning Down My Masters' House," Blair's chronicle of his short-lived journalism career and his spectacular fall from grace, was published in the Spring of 2004. A paperback edition, with new information and clarifications, is now in the works.
The new site's About section says "Jayson has made it through the fire and now runs a company, Azure Entertainment Corporation, is the vice president of another company and has founded the Azure Mental Health Project."
Presumably, "another company" is the same unnamed corporation where he holds the post of senior editor, and is the firm preparing the new paperback edition of his book.
The secrecy is odd. One would think that in the wake of the secrets and lies that ended his career, he would be open -- or at least try to appear to be open -- about basic facts.
One other interesting item found on Blair's revamped site:
“Burning down My Masters' House,” has been published in the United States and in Israel, where a Hebrew edition is sold by Glory Publishing.
A quick search turned up the following item from the Sept. 17, 2004 edition of the New York Daily News:
Six months after publication of Jayson Blair's "Burning Down My Masters' House," the memoir of the disgraced former New York Times reporter is being released overseas - in Israel. Glory Publishers is bringing out a Hebrew translation.
"It is appropriate that the book is published in Israel in time for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement," Blair said. "For the past year and a half, and for the foreseeable future, my life is a process of atonement."
...
Meanwhile, assets of New Millennium Press, his bankrupt U.S. publisher, are being liquidated. Stuart Koenig, a lawyer for the court-appointed trustee, said of the company, "Their inventory is in a warehouse in Tennessee."
Anyone want a copy of Jayson Blair's book, cheap? I didn't think so.
ijournalist | posted by SK : 2:35 AM |
