Burning Down My Masters House: My Life at the New York Times [Hardcover]

Mr. Blair characterizes The New York Times as the best journalism has to
offer, but also describes the newspaper as a fast paced, dysfunctional and
racially insensitive place to work. Her spent most of his tenure at the
New York Times abusing alcohol and cocaine and suffering through an
undiagnosed mental illness.

Despite his problems, Jayson Blair did not come across as a sympathetic
person in this book. He lashed out against the racism at the paper that
held him back and subjected him to a different standard than other
reporters, and while I do not doubt The New York Times was not a hospitable
place for people of color, Mr. Blair's personal demons and choices doomed
his career with the paper.

First, he did not adhere to the two cardinal rules which enable Black
people to survive in the workplace: You have to work twice as hard and be
twice as good as a white person to get credit, and You cannot do the same
things on the job as white people do without expecting repercussions.
Secondly, he did things like turn in erroneous expense accounts, drink and
drug on the job and use the company car for personal business that were
just wrong no matter what color the person.

Jayson Blair bemoaned that his editors had him on a tight rein (in part
because of his high error rate while abusing alcohol and drugs) but then
faulted his editors for giving him a high profile assignment a little while
later which led to his emotional collapse. He also complained about the
fact that his transgressions leading to his resignation were similar to
those committed by white reporters, but the resulting punishment was more
severe. Jayson Blair destroyed his own career at The Times by not adhering
to the Black person workplace rules of survival (or even minimally
acceptable standards of employee behavior) and gave The New York Times all
the ammunition they needed to force him to resign. There is no sympathy in
that.

Jayson Blair is a talented writer. The book was sometimes choppy, but
overall well written. However, while reading the book the I got the sense
that Jayson was not being totally honest with the reader or himself. He
had very little insight into his behavior and continued to lay most of the
blame for what happened on The New York Times. The emotions surrounding
the situation were still raw and this book would have been better had Mr.
Blair taken more time for reflection and self assessment prior to writing
his memoir.

2  stars.
reviewed by:
misrich
Mahogany Albany

Drug use is rampant. Most reporters and editors I know smoke pot regularly or did at one point, and drink like fish, and you wonder how many are into harder stuff. I am sure there are many (...) reporters out there who have not been caught yet. For many others, they haven't reached that point and perhaps never will, but still have their own coping mechanisms that may be detrimental to thorough and fair coverage.

One thing that I haven't seen on any TV interview or book review yet is anyone addressing the racial issues in the media - newsrooms and news reports - as Blair has. Blair does not simply use race as a scapegoat - he expresses interest in the effects that violence and oppression play throughout generations, be it upon Black, Jewish, Native American communities, etc. No one wants to talk about that though.

No one wants to talk about the decisions made at a daily newspaper, where the murder of a poor young Black man is called "garden variety" but a white kid bringing an unloaded gun to a suburban school is front page news. No one wants to talk about how that affects the psyche and confidence of black and other underrepresented reporters and the effects on their self-esteem. It is a shock to the system particularly for a generation of people who were born after the civil rights movement, who thought that being able to move into any neighborhood and vote meant that we would be viewed equally. It's not so folks.

I also have to say that no matter how (...) Jayson got, his writing is nice. It's not too flowery like a lot of the Times' journalists who have authored books, and he is good at summing up complexities in one or two sentences.

Perhaps the greatest sadness is that it had to come to Jayson self-destructing and deceiving people in order for him to come out and tell the truth. It's something more of us journalists should be willing to do, but we don't, and I am one of the guilty. As Jayson points out in his book, it is because most of us are too concerned with writing the stories that will get us on the front page and noticed rather than focusing on the matters that led us to become journalists. You can't blame it on any one person. It's the way things are. Let's hope that in these times of upheaval and distress worldwide, more of us will be sparked to speak the truth before we reach an awful, damaging breaking point like Jayson did.

Oh - and I'm glad he exposed the Times for what they are. They rely on scores of freelancers who are underpaid, overworked, and have no health benefits, to pad the stories of the prestige reporters. They get no credit and the bylined reporter has a great clip of thorough reporting. And how about the "toe-touch" - taking a train or plane to a city just to get the dateline, even though the story was mostly reported from New York or wherever, over the phone? That's a lie. That's (...) . A lot of local dailies do not do that. The Times has been deceiving people too. The "newspaper of record" really is a marketing tool. It's good, but by no means the absolute authority.