Disgraced Journalist Jayson Blair

Yesterday, Jayson Blair resigned from a position as journalist at the New York Times after reports that some of his articles were fabricated.

The twenty-seven year old was a national reporter for the Times who used plain fiction and odd behavior to liven his stories up a bit.

The Times is reeling from the holes the Blair scandal has exposed in their system of editing. Never was he asked to identify anonymous sources of which entire stories were based to his editors. It appeared that it was extremely easy for Blair to fabricate his stories.

Several months before his resignation, Blair took a leave of absence when he was warned that his job was in danger, but a few months later he found himself back up at the top. Loopholes in the system of fact checking allowed Blair to make it to the top of the ladder instead of simply scraping by near the bottom with his lies.

The New York Times has printed an apology to its readers that is four pages long and has asked people to please not lay blame on the editors because they were deceived, same as the readers.

The Blair scandal proves that unethical journalists will always exist. His story comes to light after reports that writers for the New Republic magazine Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass also plagiarized or fabricated stories for their papers. However the system of fact checking must become stronger and less porous so that stories of plagiarism and fabrication of news stories become less frequent and on lower scales.