No its not Tony Blair but Jayson who famously admitted that he had made up stories for the New York Times five years,a blow that the paper is still recovering from.
Jon has interviewed some commentators on the anniversary
"I suspect that serious felons like Blair have been deterred. But cheating and cutting corners has not been. Declining circulation, falling advertising revenues, and the swooning stock value of traditional news organizations, coupled with expanding consumer choices, prompts slashed newsroom budgets. "This leaves fewer editors and fact checkers to police newsroomssays New Yorker media critic Ken Auletta.
Shades of Nick Davies?
"Since the Jayson Blair case broke, many more, although still not enough, newspapers have done or some of these things: 1) expanded their corrections sections; 2) utilized plagiarism-checking programs; 3) formalized their ethics policies; 4) been more forthright in owning up to certain issues, either via an editor's column or an ombudsman."
Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher.
Since the scandal broke the Times has implemented a new policy with a number of guidelines.
1.appointed a standards editor whose role it is to oversee the integrity of journalistic processes and ensure compliance with the newspaper's ethical standards.
2.adopted a new dateline policy that makes it absolutely clear who was where.
3.adopted a new byline policy that makes it clear who contributed to the work.
4.installed a public editor who -- via his column, his email responses and his Web forum -- gives readers an avenue through which to raise questions.
5.issued a new policy on the use of confidential sources.
6.developed systems to help analyze how a particular mistake found its way into the newspaper and, more importantly, what can be done to ensure it will not happen again
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