A Fragile Trust (2013, 2014)

A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at the New York Times is a documentary film which premiered in 2013. It was shown on US television (“Independent Lens”) in 2014. Here is some basic information about it:

** Producer and director: Samantha Grant
** Available on Amazon Video
** Run time: 75 minutes

Jayson Blair (born 1976) was a reporter at the New York Times. In 2003 he resigned, after it had been revealed that at least half of the articles he had written for the paper were based on fabrications and plagiarism. By resigning, he avoided being fired. When the editors of the paper wanted to fire him, they discovered that he had resigned the day before.

This film covers Jason Blair’s life and career, focusing on his work at the New York Times. The film discusses how and why he did it. It also discusses why the editors did not stop him sooner.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that there were several warning signs that something was seriously wrong with Jayson Blair long before he resigned from the New York Times in 2003.

In this film, Jayson Blair gets a chance to explain what happened. He talks a lot, but does not show much remorse. He says it was stupid, but he does not apologize. He does not blame himself. He seems to blame the editors of the paper for not stopping him sooner.

While Jayson Blair is allowed to talk, this film does not want to defend him. Several other people are interviewed as well. Some of them were directly involved in the case, while others were observers. These people have a different approach. Here are their names in alphabetical order:

** Jerry Gray, political editor, NYT
** Macarena Hernandez, reporter, San Antonio Express-News
** Howard Kurtz, media critic, Washington Post
** Adam Liptak, correspondent, NYT

** Seth Mnookin, author of the book “Hard News” (2004, 2005)
** Howell Raines, executive editor, NYT
** Robert Rivard, editor, San Antonio Express-News
** William E. Schmidt, assistant managing editor, NYT

** Al Siegal, assistant managing editor, NYT
** Lena Williams, correspondent, NYT
** Edward Wong, correspondent, NYT

[There is also a brief clip with Gerald Boyd, managing editor, NYT, but this is archive footage. Boyd died in 2006. He was no longer alive when Samantha Grant began to make her film.]

What do reviewers say about it? Here are the results of three movie aggregators:

** 56 per cent = Metacritic
** 67 per cent = IMDb
** 67 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes

The topic is important and interesting, but the ratings are not impressive, as you can see. They correspond to something like three stars on Amazon. If you ask me, these average ratings are too low.

On the other hand, I cannot go all the way to the top, because this film has a flaw: it does not mention a similar case which happened five years before Jason Blair was exposed as a fraud.

This case concerns Stephen Glass (born 1972) and The New Republic. In 1998 he was fired, after it was revealed that several of the articles he had written in this journal and in other journals were based on fabrications.

Stephen Glass was 26 when the scandal involving him broke. Jayson Blair was 27 when the scandal involving him broke. These two reporters had almost the same age when they were exposed. They had been working as fabricators for several years before the truth about them was finally discovered.

How could they get away with this for so long? One significant reason is that they working with words and words alone. They did not have to provide any photos to support their stories. If they had been asked to provide a few photos it would have been much more difficult for them to deceive their editors and their readers for such a long time.

Many people were interviewed for this film. But not one of them mentions the case of Stephen Glass and The New Republic which happened only five years before the case of Jayson Blair and the New York Times. The omission of this case is a serious flaw which cannot be ignored; which cannot be overlooked.

I like this film and I want to give it a good rating, but I have remove one star because of this flaw. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of four stars.

PS # 1. Burning down My Master’s House: My Life at the New York Times by Jason Blair was published in 2004 (hardcover) and 2006 (paperback). The book is mentioned in the film. We are told that it got poor reviews. This is true. On the US version of Amazon there are more than forty reviews of this book. The average rating is 2.5 stars. More than twenty reviewers offer only one star!

PS # 2. Hard News: Twenty-One Brutal Months at the New York Times and how it changed the American Media by Seth Mnookin was published in 2004 (hardcover) and 2005 (paperback). The author, who appears in the film, is one of the sharpest critics of Jayson Blair.

PS # 3. Shattered Glass is a movie about Stephen Glass and his time at The New Republic. It was released in 2003.

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Jayson Blair (born 1976)

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