The most impressive effect in Samantha Grant’s documentary illustrates exactly how many of disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair’s stories were tainted. Pages are arrayed across the screen, and then, via animation, stories fall off and leave huge blank spaces.
It’s a swift, vivid movie, but 10 years past the scandal, not much is new. Blair still prefers to discuss plagiarizing and just-plain-making-stuff-up as a mental condition, not a character flaw.
Former executive editor Howell Raines, famous for proclaiming Bill Clinton had no ethics, still describes Blair like something that could happen to anyone.
The Times offered counseling and chance after chance; now Blair’s all over this film, still milking his notoriety. He’s a life coach and claims to have 200 clients. Now those people I’d like to see interviewed.