Jayson Blair Redux Not Likely, 'NYT' Public Editor Says

By: E&P Staff Sunday was a big day for public editors, past and present, at The New York Times.

In the Book Review, Harold Evans reviews, in a mixed way, the new book by former ombud, Daniel Okrent, "Public Editor #1."

Then the man currently in that seat, Barney Calame, weighs in on the results of his study of whether another Jayson Blair could bamboozle the Times today.

His verdict: Not likely.

"Could misdeeds like Jayson Blair's happen again at The Times? It's possible," Calame writes. "But the tightening of procedures and the revamping of newsroom culture initiated over the past three years make such an extensive journalistic fraud much less likely to occur again at the paper.

"That is my view. It's also the most common assessment I've gotten from the members of the Siegal Committee, which was created by the paper's management after the Blair fiasco to recommend changes to assure the quality and integrity of the newsroom's methods of operation."

Many paragraphs later, he ends on a somewhat sobering note: "The Times's new safeguards against deceitful journalists may well be tested in a different way in the not-too-distant future -- by questions of finance rather than of fabrication or favoritism. That's because the safeguards require additional resources at a time when staff cutbacks are already forcing the newsroom to do more with less. Those decisions bear watching."