Posted By Becky Bisbee

By Jason Bacaj
Special to SABEW

LEXINGTON, Va. – One important point seemed missing amid the controversy of having Jayson Blair, a disgraced former reporter at The New York Times, deliver the keynote speech at a journalism ethics institute at Washington and Lee University on Nov. 6.

“If we believe only bad people do bad things then you good people have no reason to learn ethics,” said Blair, who fabricated or plagiarized parts of at least 36 of 73 articles on national events such as the Washington, D.C., sniper attacks and the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, according to the Times.

When horrible things happen, we want to separate ourselves from it. But we learn the most when we compare ourselves to the bad guy, Blair said during the question and answer session of his speech. An understanding of how and why someone committed repeated acts of plagiarism can help prevent it from happening again.

Blair first saw the power of journalism in high school, he said. He read stories about pain and loss in the local community and saw firsthand the healing power of journalism, inspiring him to pursue the profession.

Students have a hard time swallowing the fact that he was motivated to become a journalist by similar reasons as many of them, Blair said. When students are able to draw parallels between their motivations and his, they can start to buy into the notion that they could fall victim to the same pressures.

“I am here because of the choices I made,” Blair said. “Understanding those choices may never make up for what happened, but may strengthen the profession it so deeply wounded.”

Standing behind the lectern in a burnt-orange sweater and gray slacks, Blair didn’t hide from responsibility during his 15-minute speech titled, “Lessons Learned.” At the Times, Blair’s mental illness and struggles with substance abuse coupled with an emphasis on speed and impact by the editorial staff led to his ethical transgressions. Those factors combined in “little, vague situations” that began piling up, until he was committing major acts of journalistic fraud. His first lie, making up a last name for someone who withheld his, was done for the sake of expediency, Blair told the crowd of about 150 people.

“Once that fear [of getting caught] disappears, it’s easier to cross that line,” he said during the question and answer portion of the speech.

While the acts of plagiarism Blair committed at The New York Times define him publicly, he says his struggle with bipolar disorder is much more difficult to handle than the scandal. Only after he was held accountable for his misdeeds could Blair begin to heal himself and those he hurt.

“I needed the humbling of what happened at the Times,” Blair said in an interview after his speech.

It wasn’t until a year or so later that Blair said he came out of his mental fog and dealt with the pain caused by what he did. When asked if he apologized to the people affected by the stories he fabricated, namely the family of Private Lynch, Blair said that he has made apologies to them that make no excuses, but wouldn’t elaborate.

The decision to bring Blair, who is now a life coach working in Ashburn, Va, to campus was not without detractors, however. Some W&L students felt it was wrong to have him speak on campus and protested the speech. Three of those students stood just outside the auditorium’s door holding signs covered with dozens of signatures saying, “Where’s the honor?” and “Cheating should not pay,” as people left.

“We want people to know this is wrong on principle,” said W&L junior Ken Delecki.

Delecki and his fellow protesters felt that paying Blair a $3,000 speaker’s fee to make a keynote speech on campus is hypocritical of an institution that values honor as highly as W&L. Blair said he would donate the money to the Gift Fund of the National Institute for Mental Health.

But not all students found Blair’s presence on campus without benefit.

“Wise people learn more from fools than fools from wise people,” said W& L senior Meredith Freeman.

(Jason Bacaj is a Washington and Lee student.)