A Fragile Trust: The Story of Jayson Blair

Jayson Blair was a writer for the New York Times, but more famously the star of the 2003 scandal of journalistic fraud. Blair had plagiarized a story written by Macarena Hernandez, who was a writer for the San Antonio Express-News at the time. The story was over a missing soldier and Hernandez traveled to Los Fresnos to speak to his family. Days after her story was published, Hernandez came across another story on the same subject. This story was written by none other than Jayson Blair. As she began to read his story, Hernandez noticed striking similarities in the descriptions of the family’s home. When she realized that some of his details did not line up with what she had written about, Hernandez knew Blair had plagiarized.

Blair admitted that he wrote many stories that were based on lies, and those lies were written in great detail. He would think down to every corner of the story and fabricate it beyond belief. His writing abilities were well above average, so it seemed to almost “cover up” what he was doing wrong. The events of 9/11 took a toll on Blair, as he slowly dove deep into alcohol and drug addiction. Blair eventually admitted his substance abuse and sought help. During this time, 22 corrections had to be made for multiple stories that Blair wrote. People were calling the New York Times, reporting Blair’s wrongful writing, but no action was taken to resolve the issue. As one could imagine, this turned into a greater issue over time.

When the Washington Sniper story happened not long after reports of Blair came up, he was still assigned to the cover the story. Blair had written the story, saying he was in Washington but had actually snuck back to his apartment in Brooklyn. It was revealed later on that 36 of 73 stories Blair had written for the New York Times were fabricated over the course of four years. This was during a time of high competition at Blair’s work and he wanted his name to be the byline for the best story in the paper. One of his fellow reporters said “he could not become famous, so he became infamous.”

Though many complaints were made toward Blair, he was never questioned about the plagiarism incidents. Blair eventually resigned from his position at the New York Times and left behind him a long trail of lies. Blair now works as a life coach and has over 200 clients.

Hernandez had the chance to speak about the incident with Blair plagiarizing her story. Blair only spoke to Hernandez on the phone once after the incident and never made an apology to Hernandez or the New York Times. Hernandez said there were no legal implications on Blair, because when it comes to plagiarizing, “there is not much you can do but end your career.”

Dr. Sara Stone also spoke about the importance of being transparent and honest in your work. Stone encouraged journalists to “think about what you are doing” because it matters when your name is attached to something.

“Your name is the most valuable thing you own,” Stone said.