Blair-ing Headlines

In order to land an interview with the most notorious ex-journalist in America, Mediabistro agreed to submit its questions to Jayson Blair by email (and went through with it even when his publicist didn't send them the promised copy of Burning Down My Master's House in time), so we'll never know if he had a straight face when he told them these gems:

I don't think the title implies that I was reacting to some kind of racism.

I have had one offer to write a non-fiction book, but I think I am going to focus on fiction.

Meanwhile, Bryan Curtis dubs Blair a "sad and boring thief" and adds, "Stephen Glass' crimes were compelling because they involved his gonzo imagination; Blair's involved only laziness or ennui." Last week in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Teresa Weaver panned the book hard, but New Millennium head Michael Viner didn't issue a press release just because she called his author on his "tortured metaphors and unbearably clumsy syntax." No, it's the reportage elements that leave him "aghast at the lack of ethics displayed by the reporter and editors at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today, and we'll be meeting with our attorneys to determine the appropriate legal action in the very near future. How sadly ironic that they felt the need to engage in the very kind of misconduct that they have so self-righteously accused others of."

Which is funny, because they didn't accuse Blair of being a sloppy reporter (allegedly) or breaking a book embargo, they accused him of making shit up out of thin air. And can I just say that the book embargo concept is one of the stupidest in publishing and I'm amazed that anybody in the media ever agreed to go along with it in the first place--not just for this title, but way back when? Anyway, we'll see what Viner's lawyers come up with as "appropriate legal action." Presumably, these are the same attorneys he consulted before he filed for bankruptcy just after having been found guilty of breaching a contract with an editor and ordered to pay damages...and right before he inked his deal with Blair.

In all fairness, though, when Weaver writes that "the depth of Blair's delusions is frightening, not least because he still seems to think his story, his career, is bigger than it is (or was)," you have to admit, well, when the Times devotes page after page to detailing what you did, along with every other New York paper and the national newsweeklies, and then Michael Viner pays you money to tell your story, you might be forgiven for thinking your story's kinda big.