N.Y. Times says former reporter committed 'journalistic fraud'

A New York Times reporter "committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud," including stealing material from other newspapers, inventing quotes and lying about his whereabouts, according to an investigation conducted by the paper.

The review found problems in at least 36 of the 73 articles written by Jayson Blair from the time he began receiving national reporting assignments in late October to his May 1 resignation. The Times described the episode as "a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper." Blair, 27, "used these techniques to write falsely about emotionally charged moments in recent history, from the deadly sniper attacks in suburban Washington to the anguish of families grieving for loved ones killed in Iraq," according to a story the Times posted on its Web site Saturday before its publication in Sunday's editions.

The 7,500-word story was accompanied by an editor's note apologizing to Times' readers and a detailed accounting of articles in which falsification, plagiarism or other problems were discovered by a team of Times reporters and researchers.

"It's a huge black eye," Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Co. and publisher of the newspaper, said in the article. "It's an abrogation of the trust between the newspaper and its readers."

The Boston Globe is also investigating possible fabrications in stories Blair wrote for that paper. Blair worked as an intern and freelancer for the Globe before going to the Times in 1999, and a review of 85 stories written for the Globe suggest Blair's "pattern of falsification" may date back to his stints there, the newspaper said in a front-page story Monday.

'Ingenious' methods

The Times cited several reasons for not detecting the problems with Blair, including "a failure of communication among senior editors; few complaints from the subjects of (Blair's) articles; his savviness and his ingenious ways of covering his tracks."

Blair did not return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

In a letter sent to the Times and read to the AP after his resignation, Blair blamed "personal issues" and apologized for his "lapse of journalistic integrity."

The review began after the editor at the San Antonio Express-News pointed to similarities in an April 26 piece by Blair and a story that appeared in the Texas paper a week earlier.

The story concerned a woman's monthlong wait for news on her son, a soldier missing in Iraq. The Times said at the time it was unable to determine whether Blair had done any original reporting for the piece, and Blair quit within days.

The investigation showed that while he was filing stories with datelines from around the country, Blair was often in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, even filing expense receipts from stores and restaurants there.

In other instances:

On Oct. 30, Blair wrote that John Muhammad, one of the two sniper suspects, had been talking with local investigators for more than an hour when federal authorities forced an end to the interrogation -- perhaps as Muhammad was ready to confess. But law enforcement officials told the Times that the conversation with Muhammad was focused on minor matters, such as arranging for a shower, rather than "explaining the roots of his anger" as Blair reported.

Blair's story claimed to be based on the accounts of five unnamed law enforcement sources. Times editors did not ask Blair who those sources were prior to publication.

On March 27, Blair wrote under a dateline from Palestine, W.Va., about the family of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, a POW rescued in Iraq. He described how Lynch's father "choked up as he stood on his porch here overlooking the tobacco fields and cattle pastures." The porch overlooks no such thing, the Times said, and no member of Lynch's family remembers talking to Blair. The Times said some of the Lynch articles also contained material apparently lifted from the AP.

On April 6, Blair reported on a Cleveland church service attended by a reverend whose son had been pronounced dead in Iraq the previous day. The Times said there was no evidence Blair was at the service and that his article lifted at least six passages from other news sources, including The Washington Post.