Slow Burn
I’ve just finished listening to a book-on-tape that’s about 4 years old, but worth mentioning. Burning Down My Master’s House by Jayson Blair came out in 2004 but I deliberately chose to bypass it as a new release because I didn’t want to contribute to the income of the man who was giving media such a bad name. I bought the audio version a few weeks ago for 70 cents. No one’s making money from that!
Blair was the young New York Times reporter who got caught plagiarizing and completely fabricating some of his stories. He attempts to explain his behavior with a little too much “oh poor me” for my liking. Coupled with the fact that Blair himself reads his story with an uneasy candence and poor speaking quality, it’s hard to drum up sympathy for his folly.
As a young hotshot at the Times, working in a wholly dysfunctional newsroom setting full of the pettiness, out of control egos and competition we in media have all come to know and loathe, Blair and his quick temper and arrogant manner learned what it took to get on the front page of the prestigious paper. In Burning, he exposes several behind the scenes goings-on that didn’t really surprise me but would probably raise the eyebrow of a loyal Times reader who has never worked in media. Editors had favourites on the writing staff and made sure their stuff got a more prominent spot in the paper. Crimes against whites were taken more seriously than those against minorities. Many reporters contributed to major stories that were credited only to a “star” reporter to make it appear that they were doing all of the legwork themselves. And this was a new one to me: toe touch datelines – they were common too. A reporter would be sent to, say, Washington while a Washington story was being written back in New York, so that the Times could honestly say, yes we had a reporter in Washington on that story! Pretty nutty! The reporter would get off one plane or train and right back on the next and be headed back to the Big Apple after their “toe touch”.
Blair had been sexually abused as a child. At the Times he became an alcoholic and coke addict. He had emotional and mental health problems. He believes he, and one of his subjects, sniper assistant Lee Malvo, carried the burden of slavery, as black men. Ultimately he admits he was the master of his own fate but he spends most of the book pointing fingers and offering excuses for what drove him to steal the work of others and to make up “facts”.
What’s amazing is how long he got away with it in such a widely read and respected publication. The work environment at the Times is horrible. It’s a meat grinder that takes ambitious young talent and chews it up and spits it out. People are arbitrarily reassigned to the other side of the country and blacklisted if they refuse to go. So, in other words, it’s big time media in North America. Some find the toll on their lives worth it. Some don’t. Katie Couric didn’t become the USA’s lone female network news anchor by clocking in at 9 and out at 5. The workaholic lifestyle isn’t for everyone – and I’m not even saying it’s a smart choice – but it’s how the game has played. And it’s too bad Jayson Blair didn’t find another way out of the game than a total meltdown. Some might say he was wise because he got a book deal out of it and so many people know his name. I beg to differ.
