The Wall Street Journal ran a headline, "Disgraced NYTer Jayson Blair to Address Journalism Ethics Institute" I was initially perplexed since I thought it was such a hypocrisy. Contrarily the purpose of Blair's lecture is to give future journalists a lesson in failure-- via delivering a speech entitled "Lessons Learned." Though we constantly review cases pertaining unethical practices of journalism, as a student, I could not respect a speaker who is emphasizing how they are such a derelict, unless they did something significant to show remorse.
Despite Blair's fabrication of major news stories at a highly-sought after news outlet, this raised a few questions.
I was wondering if anyone thought Blair delivering a speech on his lessons learned, was an ethical way for him to set an example of how to succeed? It is common sense, we all know plagiarizing and fabricating are unethical, so is it necessary to shift more attention on failure to succeed in journalism? Any other thoughts?
2 comments:
I think it is great that Jayson is willing to share his story in an attempt to help others learn from his mistakes. I am not sure if this is a paid engagement or not but it would be more genuine if he was doing it for free.
I agree, Jeanette. This doesn't excuse what he did, but others can learn from his story and his mistakes.
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