Jayson Blair, the reporter whose invented sources and bogus datelines plunged the New York Times into crisis this year, is back at work. He has been hired by Esquire magazine in New York to write about another journalist who invented his material.
Blair (27) is to review the film, Shattered Glass, the story of Stephen Glass, a writer for the New Republic magazine whose inventions were more exotic than Blair’s. Glass wrote a book about his hoaxes on which the film is based.
”We thought he was uniquely qualified for this particular assignment,” said AJ Jacobs, a senior editor at the magazine, yesterday. ”It’s just a one-off.”
The fee for the 1 000-word review will be around $5 000. Jacobs said he understood that Blair was going to give the money to charity. – Guardian Unlimited Â