Jayson Blair

The person I chose to learn more about was Jayson Blair former writer for the New York Times. I found an article penned by several writers within the New York Times entitled, CORRECTING THE RECORD-Times Reporter Leaves Long Trail of Deception (2003). This article was published in May of 2003 and gives a description of what Mr. Blair did wrong, how it was discovered, and the ultimate consequence that was handed down to Mr. Blair. During Mr. Blair tenure, at the New York Times, Mr. Blair became very good at using his cell phone, articles in other newspapers, and sometimes even pictures to write his stories. According to the article, Jayson Blair had problems, early on, with sticking to the truth in writing and was caught several times within the first few years of fabricating stories (2003). He was soon put under the
supervision of Ms. Pinder who monitored Mr. Blair and what he wrote about. Mr. Blair’s stories became more accurate under the supervision and he seemed to improve. Mr. Blair was eventually moved from under Ms. Pinder’s supervision to the sports desk and not long after that the national desk, due to the Sniper incident happening in the Virginia, D.C. area. While the editors at the New York Times were still uneasy about giving Mr.
Blair more responsibility they relented much to their detriment. Mr. Blair invented or embellished many details he used in his stories covering the sniper case. In one such story, he talked about local and federal law enforcement agencies fighting, which while true, was not completely accurate on what they were in disagreement about. One of the more serious stories that Mr. Blair wrote about on several occasions, was the story of Jessica Lynch the Private First Class that was captured and subsequently rescued during the war. Mr. Blair claimed to have interviewed the family, but according to the article, “Not a single member of the Lynch family remembers speaking to Mr. Blair” (2003). Mr. Blair was eventually discovered by not only his colleagues, but also the San Antonio Express News who raised questions of Plagiarism. There was a subsequent investigation, and according to the article, “…the Times journalists have so far uncovered new problems in at least 36 of the 73 articles Mr. Blair wrote since he started getting national reporting assignments late last October”
(2003). Mr. Blair was forced to resign as a reporter for the New York Times in 2003, just four years after starting his job there. What Mr. Blair did, not only damaged his own career, but also damaged the reputation of a very respected newspaper organization who prides itself on providing the truth to its customers.

Liberty University in their Academic Code of Honor defines plagiarism as, “Plagiarism is the intentional failure to give sufficient attribution to the words, ideas, or data of others that the student has incorporated into his/her work for the purpose of misleading the reader” (Liberty University, 2011).
Plagiarism is wrong because people work hard to get their own ideas out to the public and when someone decides to take and use those ideas for themselves it becomes a form of stealing. While some might take and use a persons’ ideas or words unintentionally this is still considered a form of plagiarism. If you can not remember where you got the information from you should not use it as your own idea. Even unintentional plagiarism is wrong because while you may not mean to, you are still stealing from the original author. Throughout the Bible there are verses about stealing; most notably the ten commandments in Exodus 20:15 (NIV) “You shall not steal”. As Christians we need to obey God and His Word and if we use another person’s words, pictures or ideas we need to give credit to that person for putting forth the effort to make the information available for all to use.