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Most media critics, if they believed it would happen at all, figured it would take a few months, a decent interval, before Howell Raines left the helm of the New York Times. But in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, Howell's departure came sooner rather than later. Newsweek media reporter Seth Mnookin speaks to Brooke about the unfolding drama at the Grey Lady.
The resignation of New York Times Managing Editor Gerald Boyd under the cloud of the Jayson Blair scandal came as a terrible blow to the black journalistic community. Boyd, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, was one of the most powerful journalists in the country. Bob talks to Condace Pressley, President of the NABJ, about the situation.
Top management at The New York Times is hoping that the resignation of the head editors will end the turmoil at the paper. But in Italy, the departure of the Editor at Corriere della Serra is just the beginning. Corriere cultural editor Raffaele Fiengo tells Bob what journalists are doing to protest the dismissal of his boss apparently for investigative coverage of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Earlier this month, a little-known reporter at the New York Times gained infamy when the paper revealed his extensive plagiarism and fabrications. The ensuing shakeup at the Times resulted this week in the departure of one of the paper's most well known reporters, Rick Bragg. Bob speaks to Bragg about the controversy and his decision to step down.
When it was revealed that Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Janet Cooke had invented her prize-winning story, calls for systemic reform reverberated throughout the media world. But more than two decades later, has anything changed? Brooke looks at the checks and balances in the newspaper industry, and asks whether anything could have prevented the Jayson Blair debacle.
Why didn't fact-checkers catch the lies in Jayson Blair's oeuvre? Because at The New York Times, and at most major dailies, reporters are responsible for checking the facts in their own stories. Slate columnist Brendan Koerner explains to Bob the difference between fact checking practices at newspapers and magazines.
Since the Jayson Blair fiasco recently came to light, many have wondered why the mountain of factual inaccuracies in that reporter's stories hadn't raised a red flag earlier. Its probably because mistakes aren't all that uncommon -- about half of all newspaper articles contain at least one. OTM's John Solomon takes a look at what's being done to address one of the most common grievances of readers - newspaper errors.
A messy quarrel between two Seattle papers has focused attention on the strange world of Joint Operating Agreements. These agreements make it possible for cities to be two-paper towns when they probably could support only one. Slate.com columnist Daniel Gross explains to Brooke why he thinks JOAs should go the way of the dinosaur.
