issue. so the american is still the best in the world. >> mr. secretary, we have to leave it there. thank you for being with us. we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> chris holly. chris, we just talked to the secretary, talked about copenhagen and the effort the obama administration is going to put forth. what did you hear? >> they're sending five cabinet members, including secretary chu and two senior white house officials over there to make the case that, even without the legislation having been enacted yet, the united states is acting aggressively to reduce emissions across a broad set of fronts. >> what will the secretary's role be at copenhagen? >> he's been eached as selling the message on energy efficiency

and renewable energy initiates that the united states is taking. -- ininitiatives. there's $80 billion in the stimulus bill dedicated to renewables. he's going to make the case that even in the absence of legislation, this spending will reduce u.s. emissions. >> and joe hebert, you asked about india and china. what are you -- did you hear? >> i think the administration homes that if they can get india and china to commit to something and if they can show significant progress on that front in copenhagen it will help them come back in the spring and help them pass a bill in congress. one of the biggest criticisms that there is is why should we do something that's going to

hurt us economically when china and independence ave, which are going to produce huge amounts of carbon dioxide are not doing single i think the administration, correctly or not, seems to think that it can get china to do things. in the same respect, i think he also has made clear that the administration is ready to do a little deal making in congress. maybe put a little more music -- nuclear into a i.b.m. but it seems to be confident that it can get a bill, even though right now they're way short of getting the 60 votes in the senate and there are sent risk democrats, as well as almost all republicans who are very oposed to this bill, saying it's an energy tax or in terms of democrats saying it could hurt places like ohio and push jobs overseas, perhaps to china.

i think that seems to be where they think copenhagen can help them on the hill. >> thank you both for your time. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> this week on prime minister's questions. prime minister gordon brown reports thousand u.s. is responding to recent floods in the u.k. and he talks about the secrecy of the iraq inquiry. tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> on this vote, the ayes are 60, the theys are 39. 3/5 of the senators do you live chosen sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. the >> with that vote the senate moves its health care bill to the floor. starting monday and through december, follow the entire debate and how the bill would affect access to medical care, the public option, taxes,

abortion and medicine care, live on our companion network, c-span 2. >> >> jayson blair left "the new york times" in 2003 after admitting to a series of fabricationings in his articles. he talks to students also washington impacted lee university. this is just under 90 minutes. >> what happens in this auditorium will be happening for the next hour, hour and a half. the journalism ethics institute, professor lou hodges put together a lecture in which students join with a distinguished group of journalists and economics

against fellows to argue against the rights of cases that they bring along. that seminar takes about seven hours. i know i can hear your disappointment that we haven't invited you to join us for that but i do want to thank these fellows for coming here. these are absurdly busy professionals. if i could ask each of them to stand and wave and be seated and then i'll ask the audience to give all of them a round of applause. first is seals or andrews, who's coming off a 30-year career with guinett company. most recently who led the free press in local reporting in 2009. he's distinguished professor here at w and l. george karas with cbs news

sunday? new york. he has produced more than 150 stories. michael getler, currently am budsman for pbs. was a reporter, foreign correspondent and editor for the "washington post" for 26 years then executive editor of the international heard tribune in paris. arlene of the column ave journalism school in new york. she was with the philadelphia "enquirer," which in her day was the -- one of the truly outstanding organizations. george, spernledsing in communications and ethics. john became an economic after 21 years as a journalist. reed williams. reed covers police in courts for the richmond times dispatch.

formerly he was with the roanoke times and the charlottesville daily progress. and carina zarik. she heads up the committee's freedom of information and open government operations. she teaches both at the university of maryland and american university and formerly reported if. des moines washington. please join with me in giving these fellows a warm washington round of applause. i used to work with a reporter named a -- hassenbeck. he used to say live your life to

avoimed cheap ironies. it's too easy. it's why you never change flights at the last minute. you hope to get home to wife and baby daughter a few hours early. the rule was never make it easy for reporters to come up with a mindless leads which appears to be a poignant fact that sums things up. when i invited our keynote speaker i ignored his rueful. jayson blair keynoting an ethics insurance tutes? why not osama bin ladena -- laden addressing bay knits? one flash perturbed writer said maybe they should not hire jourm little grads. i reported back that it would be

just to punish students for the sins of their teachers. programs this blogger would like to keynote our next ethics seminar. i want to talk about this invitation on two levels. first as a journalist. i'm in the business of helping train the next generation of journalists. that's because regardless of what you may have heard, there will indeed be a next generation of journalists and i have the privilege of working with some of them and they're going to be even better than we were and we were very good. as journal lisms their calling will be to engage with and confront the people who are at the center of the major events of their time. our speaker tonight is one search person. that's not to complement him. that's to state a fact. he's exactly the kind of person my kid should be prepared to engage and confront. secondly as an economic who

specializes in professional ethics, i want to know as much as i can about what drives smarment idealistic people to transgress to do things that are personally and institutionly destructive. this is tricky stuff. when you talk about context, people think you're trying to shift responsibility. oh, it wasn't him, it was the "toxic culture of the wicked nimentse." and that's not the point. but institutions often unwittingly do aid and abelt. to some degree it does take a village. we are also right to insist this undertaking of context to explain what it cannot absolve. what it can do is to appeal for our capacity for compassion and forgiveness. as i've had occasion to say, having jayson blair here is a

depar closure -- departure. but it's a departure for jayson blair too and i hope he ends up glad he agreed to come. a few program notes. jayson is going to talk for 20 to 25 minutes and then we're going to open the floor to questions, which he's eager to take. this is a university symposium. it's not a press conference. it's first and foremost intended for the students and faculty of washington & lee. so when we go to questions i would ask the media people to hold back. we wants to hear from the swain population. jayson -- civilian populations. jayson has agreed to take questions afterwards.

we will continue, and nonmedia people will be welcome to stay and i'll ask them-time to let reporters do their jobs. i hope that's ok. the last thing i want to do is muzzle the prells. one more point when we go to q and a. this isn't a town meeting. if any of you have been preparing some fiery denunciation, save it for another time and place. i'm afraid too often our brothers and sisters in the media provide models of discourse that make it seem ok to be harsh and abusive so please refrain. jayson blair is from just thank you road near snerntville, virginia. he attended the university of maryland. on march 11, 2003, it was disclosed that he had "committed frequent acts of journalistic

fraud." the widespread fabrication and plagiarism represented profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper. the times went on -- "the reporter misled readers and times colleagues with dispatch that is purpose -- purported to be from maryland, texas and other states, when often he was far away from new york. he lifted news articles from wire services. he gave the impression he had been elsewhere when he had not. the times reporters found that -- of 73 stories blair had written, 26 has substantial problems. like journalists elsewhere, the times took this very hard. the paper's postmortem ran 7,000 words. it was published on a sunday and it started on page one. by comparison, a year later when

the paper finally recognized that its prewar coverage of weapons of mass destruction was badly flawed, the acknowledgement ran 1,100 words, was published on page a-10 on a wednesday. in the aftermath, simmering friction boiled over at the times from the two top editors of the newspaper. they were forced to resign in a wide ranging reappraisal of management practices. to some it looked as if the affair was like a blown tire that kept a high-performance carp that was being handled recklessly from being driven over a cliff. so jayson blair, a talented and deeply troubled young man who longed to matter ended up matterering in ways he hadn't anticipated. that was then. jayson is with us today. i wrote a profile about his

reemergence as a life coach in august and now here we are. but i'm here neither to praise jayson blair nor to bury him but to present him in the hope that his story will contribute to the preservation of the -- journalism, a profession that many of us love and all of us need. i give you jayson blair. [applause] >> hello, everyone. are we good? um, it's always nice to visit the shenandoah valley. there are few parts of the words for me that are so beautiful and few that have been home to such interesting people. when i was first approached about speaking at washington & lee i was hesitant about reopening an old wound of mine

and of the journalism profession. but i was convinced that there are more lessons to be learned from my experience. i believe in what robert e. lee said when he came to the school as president. he said that it is the duty of all citizens to do all in their power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony. i believe it is my duty, despite my new focus on mental health causes to do what i can to journalism students to help them avoid the rocky roads that lead to ethical transgressions. my intention and my hope is that this will be my last public comment on journalism. i hope to reserve future comments to private gatherings of students and individuals. learn from my mistakes and be

inspired by my recovery. i'm at peace with the knowledge that there's no one or nothing to blame for my troubles but myself. i had been accused of attempting to deflect became blame on the nimentse, the perfection of journalism, illness, race, and an allotment of other people, places and things. those accusations of blame or as big untruths as the lies i've told. i am here because of choices i made. it is in those choices that we find lessons to be learned that we can find power to affect change. understanding those choices has helped me better appreciate the human condition. understanding those choices has helped me learned how i went from being a person who pledged to confident is afflicted and to seek the truth into a man who left some deem scars on his chosen profession.

understanding those choices may never make up for what happened but it has the potential to help strengthen the profession it so deemly wounded. i recognize that i'm but one of the voices that contribute to the lessons that can be learned from my experiences. i realize that i see my experience through a looking glass that provides great insight and great distortion. as the french author said, the defects and faults of the mind are like wounds to the body. after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them, still there will be a scar left behind. one of my favorite newspaper movies is the 1994 classic "the paper." it's by ron howard. it was a comedy drama about a fictitious newspaper tabloid called "the new york sun." it stars robert duvall as the battle worn editor and chief and michael keaton as the ego young

reporter. toward the end of the movie, duval's character is sitting at a bar with keaton's character. duval asks a theoretical question of keaton's character, whose wife is pregnant and who's asking to spend less time at work. let me give you a hypothetical. a guy has a gun. pulls it to a come's held. i blow up your wife or the sun building. chose. what do you say? keaton's character said it's ridiculous, it's not going to happen. duval's character responds, that's my point. it's never one big dramatic choice. it's little vague situations every day and you're either there or you're not. if you keep waiting for the guy with the gun to show up it will be too late. duval knew his daughter was divorced, she wouldn't speak to him.

it tells how a noble man slowly for examples into a alcoholic who loses his family. rarely are choices in life presented amount a major dramatic question. if they were it would be easy. if i'd been asked one day whether i wanted to destroy my career, trash my profession and undermine belief in jourm little i would have declined because of the potential benefits. but life's choices rarely present themselves in one dramatic question or one big decision. instead, our most important choices in life, inincluding ethical ones, present themselves in small baby stems. one stem at the same time and mine are choices that may not even seem related to the ultimate outcome. and then one day like the chucky -- alcoholic who loses his wife or his daughter's love, you can turn around and find yourself

close or cross a line that you never thought you would go near. i see this pattern every day from people who arrive in hi office in north -- northern virginia where i now work. i see it in my own life. one of the first questions journalism students usually ask me is about why i got into the proisk. -- profession. they can have a hard time swallowing the notion they got into the profession because i was curious, loved writing and wanted to help people. my reasons seem as noble as their own. i think it's harmed for people to process the idea, to internalize the notion that i once was so much like them. but it's an important premise in looking at my career, because if you buy the idea that i became a journalist for sump noble reasons and that i could cross the ethical lines that i did,

you can buy the notion that you can. as f.b.i. profilers will tell you, recognizing that anyone is capable under the right circumstances of anything is the first step in guarding against the evil from within. i had been curious and interested in writing as long as i can remember. i became interested in journalism as a high school student when i learned that newspapers could help people. i can still remember the stories in the "washington post" and our local newspapers that propelled me into the profession. one was about the life and death of a student who had been my friend. i saw the healing power of journalism. another was about a classmate whose insurance company had denied medical treatment for anorexia that had left her hospitaled and turned into a dying skeleton. i saw the helping power when thousands of dollars were raised and the girl's insurance company

reversed its decision because of the bad publicity. i began writing for the local newspaper and followed that with enrollment at the university of maryland where i wrote for the daily newspaper that i would become editor of years later. i was taught by greats like haading carter and reesecally born. in between i had internships at the "the washington times" trnings "washington post," the west virginia globe, the metro section of the globe. this experience led to my being hirledse in 1998 as a summer intern at "the new york times." i was part of a magical class. talented reporters by ed wang and mac arena hernandez. we were meantored by the best and expected that only one of us would be offered a position at the end to have 10-week internship. at the end, the majority of us were selected to return to the people, although a few of those

chose to pursue other options in the path that led me to the times you can begin to see the underpinnings of what contributed to my ethical failings. i entered the profession to help people then became convince is that to help the most people i had to have the greatest impact and to have the greatest impact i had to work at one of the best newspapers. later i was convinceed that i needed to have the best beat to make the best impact. somewhere along my way i lost sight of the very reason that i entered journalism. once that underpinning was lost i was anchorless. i was climbing without a moral navigation system that had guided me earlier. no one came to my door with a gun and asked whether i wanted to shoot journalism. it was not so simple. at the corps i am to blame for

my choices. there are a number of confounding factors that in some ways contributed to the environment right for my transgression. i was at the newspaper at the time when we had a new editor who put a much greater emphasis on speed -- speed and impact than on accuracy. he said that he believed we could do things faster and more powerfully with the same amount of accuracy. however it had an ultimate result of sacrificing some accuracy influence a philosophy that reallocated resources and left less time being devoted to the reporting and writing of each story. this likely contributed to other problems the paper had during that period. an additional factor was the battle fatigue at the times following the september 11 attacks. we were emotionally in the midst

of a never-ending marathon that had taken a cumulative toll on our editors and reporters. it was in this environment that i remember first crossing wang. once it was crossed it was some easier to cross again. an additional factor involves my own personal struggles, which are not very relevant to the journalistic lessons. i have discussed my struggles with drug abuse and will not dwell on them here. but my recovery from alcohol and drug abuse was the harbinger leading the way for the intense filed presentation of meantal health symptoms that added fuel to a fire that was initially ignited by my character flaws, allowing it to burn brighter and perhaps longer. one of the major problems with the instruction of ethics is that the focus is often more greatly on the best practices

when we can learn the most from the worst practices. excuse me. which set firm boundaries and teach us how good people end up doing bad things. if we miriam believe that only bad people do bad things then you good people have no reason to learn ethics at all for your desk ined to do good no matter what happens. i would like to address my feelings about the times. it's a wonderful newspaper whose ed toirps came to my refreshing on the day of my resignation. they responded to human kindness by emptying the newsroom and getting me the medical attention they assumed i needed. i continue to be very grateful to them. thank you all very much for listening. at this point i think we're going to start the question and answer session and there are a number of topics. obviously, either that i didn't

go into detail about. feel free to follow up. feel free to ask any question about any particular topic, whether i touched on it or not. uh, there's someone with a miving. someone back there -- there we go. i think this gentleman. >> hi, mr. blair, you talked a lot in your speech about your personal journey and how you recognized the impact you made on journalism as a field. you didn't talk about how you feel about the impact you made on the individuals. mr. rains, mr. buddy, hernandez. what's your feelings towards them and how you have impacted them? >> um, from my perspective, i think that one of the -- and it's not something i've talked about in any public forum. the most painful part of it for me -- a very painful part of it

is the damage done do journalism and the recovery that had to occur after that. but for me as a human being, the hardest part is the personal part and i think that the issues i struggled with the most personally was one, the impact on people like howell and gerald but also on many people you've never heard of or you may have heard of but you don't know about. they were my friends who were reporters and editors who felt betrayed. wrong who quelled our friendship because i couldn't come to them when i needed help. and then the subjects of the stories, which i haven't talked about in much detail. that's, for me -- when i think about harm and the damage, one of the things that some of my friends love to say, they love to make the point that the weapons of mass destruction story that judith miller wrote, they actually contributed to a war and all those bad things.

what you did, jayson, was not at -- as bad. but i like to tell them the stories of the original stories of why i got into journalism. it was to help people and heal people through my stories and i ended up truly hurting individuals. the subjects of the stories, sources of the stories, people who red la -- read the stories and believed some part of it that wasn't true. .

>> by the time we're there, i completely lost sight of the original reasons. you'll climbing the ladder at that point and i don't even know why, i don't even know what the purpose is, why i'm doing it or putting so much energy in it. so i think it was the first time for me was a matter of expediency. you know, it was -- it involved a situation where it involved making up a last name for somebody who wouldn't give their last name. and when that line was crossed,

it was that much easier afterwards. and it's not to say that during the whole period -- you know, the period toward the end of my career, it's not to say that there weren't moments where i said, oh, what the heck am i doing. it's not this sort of blur of madness or this blur of -- without thinking about all of the ethical implications. i would cross the line and then i would tell myself i'm never going to do that again, i'm never going to cross that line again. and because i didn't have something that i have since learned in my work as a life coach, i had no accountability, because i was unwilling to be honest with even my closest friends at the paper. i could have said to someone, look, i did this -- or even to my editors, and face whatever consequences there were, assuming that they kept me on. i would have at least then had some accountability. my only accountability was myself, and that, for me, at

least, was not very good. >> so you were acknowledging to yourself that you were lying. >> oh, certainly, certainly. you know, intermittently on and off, but i would say many, many times over the period. >> thank you. >> you mentioned that you were climbing the ladder at this point, and you did advance very far career-wise in a very short period of time, it seems. and yet, there had been signals before your metro editor had commented that you had not fulfilled all of his expectations. why do you think institutionally that you were able to rise so fast despite some of these doubts? >> well, i mean, some of it has to do with internal stuff at the time that is i could only speculate about. for example, why one individual's warning about someone may have been ignored. i mean, there are all sorts of

different reasons. so i can't really speculate about internally why at the time, you know, the system of checks and balances broke down, but i can tell you just generally from being at the paper at that time, the tension that was created by the idea of a new executive editor coming into the paper and essentially sending the message, hey, everyone, you weren't good enough before i got here. you've got to do it better, faster. then we get hit by the september 11 attacks. so instead of what would have normally happened, the section editors get replaced slowly over time, he stuck with the section editors. after he's criticized them both during his campaign to get the job and when he came in the door. but now he's stuck with them. the communication was not very good at that point. and, you know, just like we talked -- or i talked about the notion that an unintentional,

ethical white house was emphasizing speed over accuracy, it's the same thing with communication within an organization, where you have accountability or reviews or you are trying to help someone or ensure the integrity of your organization, when the sort of organizational structure is designed poorly, which it was not at the time, it was designed very well. when those communication structures broke down and people decided not to pay attention to each other or not talk to each other, they weren't technically making ethical decisions, but they had ethical implications. i hope that sort of answers it, without being able to -- i can't read their minds. >> you must recognize that what you have done has caused particular injuries to black journalists and journalists of

color. what can you do or say now to alleviate some of that harm? >> that's a really good question. i mean, that harm has been done by the coverage and comments that other people have made. i can't predict based on what i do or what i don't do how i will be covered and how that will be reflected on the african-american community. this is a particularly difficult issue for me, this question of diverse team. when i was at the paper i was an advocate for diversity. i was an advocate for not just racial diversity, but ethnic background, that coal miner from west virginia i wanted as much as that guy from the inner steefment on one hand as an advocate for diversity, i find myself sort of wanting it both ways, because when i then end up in trouble, i want to be able to say, well, you can't extrapolate me when i'm doing

well, extrapolate me to other journalists or other black people. when i'm not doing well, you're not allowed to. but it's a tad bit unfortunate, because when you look at the facts of the case, i think race played very little role in either my rise or my fall. the people who have commented and said that it did, you know, not only are they uninformed, they weren't ever close to the situation or the information. see, look at the qualifications of me when i came into the time -- "the times" and compare them to any other reporter that they hire around that age or any of my colleagues as interns, and mine were far above all of them. if you look at my fall, it has to do with my personal failings and nothing to do with my race. so to sort of advocate along the lines that you shouldn't equate me to black journalists is like buying into a false argument already, you know. it's just a silly argument

that, to me, is not even worth engaging in. the type of people who are going to go and run with that, i'm not going to ever change their minds anyway. >> jayson, i had a question for you. i describe your transgressions, that this was sort of a gradual thing. how is it that you used the term "baby steps" to describe the decision you made to go to a coffee shop instead of getting on a plane and going to west virginia to interview the lynches? how is that a baby step? how is that not a man with a gun? how is that not a man with a gun? >> the baby steps began at the beginning, that's the running part. the baby steps start long before then. >> that should be a man with a nuclear bomb, don't you think?

why didn't you recognize that? why didn't you stop? >> it's not that i didn't recognize it, why didn't i stop? i don't know. it's difficult for me to answer. if i were to -- you know, i mean, this gets into the part where, to answer this question, then kind of -- it sets me up for the argument that i'm making excuses. but i was sick, and that is a legitimate part of it and you can't take that confounding factor out of it. you can also look at the fact that i was immature and i had these character flaws. all these things were coming together to contribute. i don't know which ones, if you pull them out, the scandal doesn't happen or the fabrication of plagiarism doesn't happen, but there are a lot of factors. what i'm focusing on right now are my choices and my character, because that's where i have the chance to change them, if that makes sense. but i don't see, you know, those as baby steps, but i think ethical decisions begin

with baby steps. one of the storings we talked about today was the monica lewinsky story and clinton. and if you look at his life and you look at those ethical small steps that started in arkansas a long time ago that led to that day, we know it starts with small things usually. and, yes, you eventually get a bad choice, but -- a big choice, but by the time you get the big choice you've gotten so close to the line. >> you don't recognize it as the big choice? >> it's not that you don't recognize it. it's interesting that you put it that way. i would say it's like erosion, slowly compromising you and slowly compromising. you know it's a big deal, just like the guy cheating on his wife knows it's a big deal, but it all started when he first started going to the strip clubs, then he starts desensitizing himself to this notion of whatever it is. soy think that it's that part.

it's not that you don't recognize it's a big choice, it's that you're desensitized to it. is that a fair way to put it? no? >> i think it's getting to the point where you woke up. >> well, there are many points where i woke up, i just did not know which avenue to take. she got at it with her question, that there were clearly moments for me where i realized, oh, my god, what am i doing, i need to stop this. fid taken the next step and reached out to the number of hands at the paper and other places that were out there to help me, it would have stopped. but because of my character, i didn't do that. i mean, it's on me. i mean, i understand your point, but that's sadly what happened. >> was there any moment when you were sitting in a coffee shop in brooklyn and looking in

a paper and you saw a lie you printed that you felt, hmm, i pulled one over on "the times"? >> the whole sitting in the coffee shop thing, it was more actually being in my apartment. there was a stretch -- [laughter] no, there was a period of like literally -- someone else knows the timeline better than i, and i don't fear. but there was literally a period of two months where i may have left my apartment a handful of times. literally did not leave, as in may have had some people bring some stuff over to me so i could survive. so i don't really remember reading the paper that much during that period of time. i don't remember reading my story. >> what were you thinking of yourself, especially when you noticed what you were doing and realized what you were doing was wrong? >> it's not like i didn't notice when i did it the first

time. for me, i think what i was thinking was exactly what i said before. oh, my god, i've got to stop this. i mean, i think it's important to understand that, you know, there are lots of different not yiffs for why people lie, why people -- motives for why people lie and cross ethical lines. in this particular case and the way i view it -- it's not particularly sympathetic, but i view it as a combination of character flaws and circumstances and the fact that because of my sickness i wasn't able to do my job. now, a normal person who is sick and can't do their job says, hey, boss, i'm sick, i can't do my job. but instead, because i think problems with my personality, i tried to force it and get the stories done anyway without just turning to them and saying i need help. so in my particular case, you know, that's kind of what's going on in my head during that time. >> here at washington we were

taught that it's a good thing that journalists don't have a licensing board, it's louse free flow of information. but -- it allows free flow of information. but maybe this is something we need to prevent this kind of thing. what's your response to that? >> i have no idea, but licensing boards are not the panacea of ethical problems. look at medicine, look at psychology, look all over. they have a bigger or as big ethical problems. >> you say you view your mistakes as a character flaw. did you view it as a character flaw then? and also, did you lie consistently in your daily life outside of your news stories? >> well, i mean, certainly more than i do now, you know. [laughter] in and outside, required a little lying outside of it, too. i did see it as a character flaw. i think that it kind of fits

with that, you know, pride, fear, anxiety, all sorts of things motivate lying. i've done a lot of studying of the different reasons why people lie, both for my work now and for trying to understand myself. but i think that there is a certain fundamental weakness that you see as you run through my story, an unwillingness to admit weakness and unwillingness to ask for help. it's actually irrelevant when it comes toette edition, too. because when you push yourself to the wall or someone else pushes you to the wall and you don't say, hey, i need help, it has implications. not necessarily implications like mine, but implications in terms of harm on your own life or harm on someone else's life, but it does. go ahead. >> i read an interview in which you were quoted as saying that you thought journalism was more about the relationships and the connections you had, and less

about writing. >> did you read that? >> yes. >> seriously? was it with big quotes around it or was it about -- >> it was. >> who? >> it was mike corona, caroda. mike corona, i think, was the man who had interviewed you. it was at this small school. >> oh, at chantilly high school, ok, ok. >> you told him that you got your internship at the "boston globe" because the associate dean at the university of maryland had pretty much offered it to you and that, yes, pretty much journalism was about who you know and not as much about the writing. >> i don't recall ever seeing his story, so i'll try not to comment directly on the story. journalism, like any other profession, involves networking and relationships and other things like that. that part of the story, the idea that the assistant dean --

i think i know who he's talking about -- at maryland could offer a job at the "boston globe" is a little ludicrous to me. it's does he have influence? do they know people? yes. do they pass their clips on, do they pitch you? yes. that's a natural part of any business. i don't think it's nelle incon grew yu with meritocracy. the idea that somebody would be your advocate doesn't bother me. >> did you ever take an ethics class at maryland? >> yes. i mean, we had ethics in all of our classes at maryland, all of our journalism classes at maryland. >> you spoke of your maturity before, your immaturity in reporting. and i was wondering that fact that you did not graduate from maryland, did that compound with any of that imma'am turet? >> other than -- immaturity? >> other than my own personal insecurity, you know, my own self-worth, i don't think it actually -- it didn't change anything in terms of what journalism classes i would have taken, my not graduating from

maryland had everything to do with just finishing up the course, so -- >> do you think that was the first baby step when you showed up at the "new york times" and everyone assumed you had finished your college degree, when you hadn't? >> there were plenty of people who knew clearly, including the hiring managers. that's another thing about this story, that, you know, it was kind of -- for a story about journalism ethics, you go and read the facts that are out there supposedly about my career and you will find not inaccuracy as in jayson's interpretation is different, but factual inaccuracies. people making comments on things that they clearly were not involved in, and that's one of the issues. that the editors who needed to know and did know knew at the time, so there's not -- to me, i didn't feel like there was any ethical -- there was not an ethical issue there if you know and you have disclosure. the editors who then replace those editors didn't know about it, but it's not my job to pass

on info. i mean, really, it's not, any more than, you know, you would expect that there would be normal communication, personnel files, people would ask questions, conversation. toes does that make sense? ok. >> from your perspective and your experience. have you seen -- what's the prevalence of falsifying stories of lying, of making things up? >> i couldn't even speculate on that. >> and do you see things where we have to worry about another jayson blair? is this -- how prevalent is this? is this a one-time case or -- >> well, it's not a one-time case, we've had plenty of examples since then and before then. i think that when you -- i don't really know how to answer that question. >> i ask you only because we read the paper, and outside of kind of what intuitively we think may be kinds of wrong, you've had experience in making things up, you've had

experience inside a newspaper. >> view a text. find a story that's been written about me in the last week. google a couple of lines from it and see if you can find it copied word for word somewhere. i'm willing to bet you no. and this isn't a knock on journalism. it's not so much journalism that has driven this part of it, the plagiarism post me off the side of the cliff. a lot of it has to do with blogs and websites. when you ask me this question do we have a problem of plagiarism and fabrication, yes, we do. how much of it is in the mainstream media, i don't really know. >> the assumption is that for a large part you are an anomaly. that's what we're told in our classes and everything. where in the real world, when you're working in a newspaper, are you an anomaly? >> i don't know. i can't really answer that question. i mean, are you asking me something more specifically, do i know other people who -- >> yes. >> i don't really know what's going on right now with people. >> are the standards as strict

as we think they are? >> i don't know how strict you think they are. [laughter] >> i mean, the standards we were taught is you are not to plagiarize, quotes, stories, anything. are the standards -- i mean, you got away with countless, countless special errors. >> i'm probably not the best one to answer this one, because i have not paid such close attention that i could give you any serious, honest answer on that. i mean, i think some of the other cases speak for themselves, but -- >> you mentioned that some of your -- a lot of what you did was based on character flaws. do you think that these character flaws are inherent, or were they learned? where were they learned, and have you changed, and is there any way we could -- >> the -- you know, inherent

learned, i don't really know the answer to that question, for me or anyone else that i worked with. i think more important for me has been identifying what they are and guarding against them. recognizing in myself -- or not recognizing, having to go through something where -- and it didn't happen when the scandal happened or when i got caught, it's when i began to do it, that i was capable of doing something that i never thought i was capable of doing has sort of opened this door for me to examine myself and question all sorts of things about my behaviors and what i value in life that have actually made me a much better person and strengthened my character. i don't know where it originally came from, but -- >> you said earlier that one of the reasons you went astray was because you were trying to climb the corporate ladder, if you want to term it that way. was there a point where it

became i'm going to do the story this way and you didn't falsify it because you thought, oh, maybe i can get favor with this editor? do you understand, where it's talking about the writing, but more where you could go? >> i understand what you're saying, but it was more pavlovian for me, it was like editor rings bell, jayson responds. it was about delivering what they wanted. it became about delivering what they wanted. obviously they didn't want it fabricated and plagiarized, but that's all that was sort of in my head, if that makes sense. >> jayson, the title of your talk is lessons learned. i'm curious, what lessons do you think the news business has taken from your case, and what lessons do you think it should have taken from your case? >> interesting. that's a good one. you know, i think that you were getting at this idea -- are you the one -- you're the one who said anomaly. i think that one of the things that happened in my situation was, you know, my story is an

anomaly in many ways because of the breadth and the largeesse of it. it's not an anomaly in terms of ethical problems in journalism in general. and i think we have a natural tendency as human beings, when we see something horrible happen, particularly when it comes to something that we care about, we want to separate ourselves from it. we want to somehow explain how this guy or this thing is just so different than me, it makes us sleep better at night, but often we learn the most from it when we look at the similarities that exist between us and people who do drk people who are very good, who do good things and people who end up ultimately doing bad things. so, you know, i think that the lessons learned related to systems to catch plagiarism, better checks and balances with the newspapers. you know, those were obvious

ones. i think one of the more subtle ones that don't fit within what's happening with the business is like i talked about speed and accuracy, how that had an unintentional impact, speed on accuracy. to suggest that the model for journalism is changing, transforming and becoming this web-based faster model, is not necessarily a bad thing in many ways, but to suggest that that doesn't have some ethical implications or potential ethical land mines seems a bit silly to me. so i think that people would like to -- or it's a lot easier to walk away with lessons about h.r. and hiring practices and other things like that and not walk away with the bigger lessons that would really make it difficult or create difficult questions or dilemmas. >> hi, jayson. >> hi. >> you were talking about how during the time that you were going through whatever you were

going through that it was easy to fall, and i think what makes it difficult for a lot of people here to understand what happened is the lies that you made are kind of going out of your way almost. it seems that lying actively creates a bigger web for you and it makes it more difficult. i'm curious as to how you walked around the newsroom. >> i wasn't in the newsroom. >> you never were in the newsroom. >> well, there were times when i was in the newsroom, but that's part of the issue. i was rarely in the newsroom. but i'm not -- >> did you ever talk to your editors, did you ever talk to other reporters that you were co-working with, whether you were just in your apartment or not? >> yes. >> was there ever a time you talked to people about your stories, that you had to remember the lies that you wrote in your stories? >> you know, journalism can be a very what have you done for me lately business. today's newspapers, you know, or whatever the line about fish wrap -- i can't remember.

that's how long i've been out of the business. i think that one of the things, even with the colleagues that i did talk to, whether you had a front-page story or not, everybody was talking about the next story. they were focused on the next event, so there wasn't a lot of conversation about stuff like that. and i think in general post-september 11, a lot of my colleagues were sort of caught in new york city afterwards. something sort of changed among us. we spent a lot less time talking about our work and spent a lot more time just being friends. so there wasn't that much communication, and i think that -- it goes back to that idea i was talking about of not really having any accountability at that point, which would have been healthy for me to have. [inaudible question] no, not with what was -- oh, here's what -- you were asking

whether it would have been easier for me to have just been there. she was giving an example of a photographer who called me. i think you're talking about a story from probably maryland. a photographer calling me, telling me he's there or near there or whatever it was. this is a question i get all the time. was the fabricating actually harder than the real reporting, and in many ways it took more work and took more brain power. but just given how sick i was and the way i was sick, traveling was not going to happen. i mean, if i had tried to travel at certain points it wouldn't have happened much the one time i did try and travel during the period ended up being a disaster that i had to be rescued from. so it's not that the fabricating was somehow easier than doing the actual work, it was that given the specific circumstances for me at that time, it was easier. because of the travel.

all right. right here. >> i have two questions for you, jayson. >> ok. >> the first is just from listening to you talk, it sounds like -- i mean, you've talked about your illness and this and that. this sounds silly, but were you hoping to get caught? >> i mean, it's interesting that you ask that. i think there was a part of me that definitely didn't want to get caught. you can certainly see that in the last few days before i resigned from the paper, where i'm desperately trying to hide from my editors. i was talking to someone about this last night and they were asking me, why did they believe you when you were lying to them in those last few days? it's because i was conceding the known problems and trying to sort of run this defensive guard action, where i was hiding everything else that they didn't know about me. and i think they took that part of me, you know, conceding that

i had made terrible mistakes as a sign that i must be telling the truth. so at that point i can say i definitely didn't want to be caught. there were points earlier of it where i didn't think anybody had an inkling of it -- well, actually some people in washington did, but it hadn't filtered back down to me, but -- >> it seems to me like a runaway train, and at some point you almost want to get caught to put an end to all the madness. >> no, i mean, i think there is some truth to that, but, yes, there is some truth to that. but to suggest that it was just sort of running and i wanted to get caught, wanted to get caught, wanted to get caught and came off the cliff, it was more of sort of want to get caught, turn around, no, i don't want to get caught, yeah, i want to get caught. it's a little messier than the narratives that we like in a story. >> and my second is more of a serious question, and that sort

of strip away all the coverage that has been made about this and blogs and newspapers and all of that and sort of thing about "the times" legacy of the 152-year legacy, and you think about the legacy of journalism for the last few hundred years. and, i mean, do you feel -- i mean, there have been plenty of people that have had impacts on plagiarism and this kind of thing. but especially you at the "times" and the way you did it and the way that it all happened, do you really truly feel the impact that you sort of -- on the trust and the ripple across journalism? >> yes. >> because i feel like that is a key point here. >> it is a key point that "the times" is one of the papers, you know, that people look to for the truth. and i think it was a particularly hard blow for people for that reason. i think it was also a particularly -- i mean, it was a particularly hard blow in

many different ways. and i think i have -- i have a good understanding of the impact it had. what i think it did was it really gave people a lot of people who railroad distrusting of the news media at the time -- who were distrusting of the news media at the time and still are, it gave them an example to make the point that they wanted to believe or say whenever they disagreed or didn't like a story. and that, to me -- yeah, it had a huge impact. >> this is actually a question i should ask to somebody else, which is your first source that you betrayed, and all the other sources -- now, some were just made up, but many of these were real people. but that quote -- you said you had a great quote post 9/11. the person didn't give their last name. presumably they gave their first name, so you made up a

last name. >> right. >> i don't understand. i'd rather ask that person, but you're in the room. why could they read what they said, read their first name, read another last name in "the new york times", and this presumably happened over and over again, and not call up "the times"? and then once they didn't do that, then you were getting away with it. but we've been talking about editors and colleagues. what about the sources? >> well, i mean, there are a couple of things, and i probably shouldn't answer this question. but since some of the people who have been my sources have given me a little insight since then, since i've connected with them and they've given me insight on why they didn't call or why certain things, but, one, not everyone reads the tilse, so we can start there. so not necessarily everyone sees it. and even when some people do see the coverage, things are wrong or mistakes are made and all sorts of things. this is what they say, not me.

if they ran around trying to correct it all, that's all they would spend their time doing. so this is on big breaking stories. so what these people basically say to me is they figure either i got it wrong or i screwed it up, but what the heck, it was maybe an honest mistake or something like that. so they just fit it within that context. [inaudible question] >> that is true. [inaudible] >> there's no reason you should be compelled to believe anything. it's your choice. i would tell you to do the same thing i'd do on a daily basis and the same thing i encourage

everyone in my life to do, which is you listen to what people have to say, you examine it, you compare it to the facts that you know. you want to make sure that those facts are actually facts. but you compare it to the facts that you know. you collect information from collateral sources and you make a determination for yourself about the credibility of it. >> i think that's a good response, particularly regarding a story where you're talking about facts and numbers. but this is really about an assessment of your observations, your views. >> it's the same thing. >> your perspective. >> well, when someone walks into my office and i'm trying to determine whether they're lying, i listen to them, i collect the collateral information, i check it against available facts and information that exists out there, and i make some judgment in my mind about whether it's credible. i have the advantage that i can actually confront them with it and ask them whether they're lying and other things like that. but it's the same thing when you listen to anyone, you know.

you listen to what they have to say, listen to the collateral information, make some determinations about whether you find it credible or not. there's no reason i think you should be necessarily compelled to believe my version of events. i'm just offering it, you know. i'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. >> let me go back to what you said about 20 minutes ago of covering the world from your apartment. >> yes. >> and from today's life coach perspective, go back and talk a little bit about the culture of "the new york times," because at that point you should have been turning in on a monthly basis, at the minimum, your expense accounts. obviously, you weren't paid thatch. >> well, a lot of people turn in -- it's a matter of the particular time, and by that i don't mean the newspaper, i mean the time. you know, post 9/11, etc., etc., etc., a lot of people had

been on very extended assignments. so expenses weren't getting turned in on a monthly basis. >> but by expenses, i just mean that's kind of a sign, an indication of a culture. so i'd rather have you speak as a broader culture, if possible. >> a sign of what? >> a sign of, shall we say, lax culture, corporate culture. in other words, the reporters, i assume, really were more in control than -- i guess my question is more -- >> that's not so much the truth. it's not that there was a standard policy that said, hey, you have to have your expenses in. it was worked out with individual editors on the desk for individuals. certain bureaus did have to do their expenses at certain times. but i guess if you're trying to get at the more general question, were the reporters running "the times" -- >> well, no, not that at all. in retrospect of where you are today looking back, what lessons have you learned that could be, shall we say, shared, as a lot of these folks are

going into the corporate world about what to look for in terms of corporate culture? >> i'm so not qualified to really answer that question. i mean, it's hard for -- i don't think i can really answer that one. i understand what you're getting at and i understand the point that you're sort of getting at, but i just don't think that i necessarily have the knowledge base to answer it . >> hi, jayson. i was just curious as to whether or not, while you're writing those stories and fabricating lies, were you proud of yourself? were you proud of the stories that you wrote? >> no. >> no? >> no. >> you were like conscious of it. >> correct. >> it's hard for me to understand how you kept doing it. >> i don't know. i was an alcoholic, keep on picking up a drink when they know it's killing them. >> ok. >> i have a question. >> sure. >> if i had some advice for a newsroom manager who was

looking for those first baby steps, could you give her or him some advice on how to find some young journalist into might be inching astray? >> young, old, middle-aged, i think that inherently one of the difficult things when it comes to journalism is that ultimately, no matter how much policing you do, the relationship between an editor and a reporter is based heavily on trust. but i think applying just a little of that same skepticism that we apply to every sort of politician or public relations person who tells us something, applying ta same skepticism to our reporters not in a sort of overpowering or domineering way, but really question things, see if things line up. all the examples that i can think of over my career, in my instances and others that you'll aware of, where people

have crossed those sorts of ethical lines, certainly in retrospect, there were signs. i don't know how many could have been caught because of the inherent system of trust, trust that we wouldn't benefit anyone we were writing about, or even our mothers, as they say. so i think just a little more healthy skepticism going both ways. >> was it hard to trust other journalists while [inaudible] >> yes. it was hard then. it's harder now. was it hard, or do you want to yell it? >> i asked if it was hard to trust other journalists while you were fabricating, and is it harder now? >> yes and yes. probably -- i mean, profoundly because of what i was doing and

what i was getting away with.=v there's a part of me that, i think, before it happened didn't even think -- thought for sure you would be caught. and i think that's part of the psychological thing in ethics, this fear that you will be caught, whether it's a real fear or not, keeps you from getting close to the line. once that fear sort of disappears, it becomes easier to get there. certainly -- i think you're going to hear similar things from anyone who's been written about. it becomes a little bit harder to trust -- i don't know. it's harder to trust reporting, you know, any time you've been written about in small ways or big ways, just because of the mistakes that do get made that you can see. but i would say that i have progressed to the point where i can read a newspaper and enjoy it and put that same sort of skepticism, this is their best shot at the truth or their best attempt to get to the truth, and that's enough for me, as opposed that this is needing to

believe that this is just the absolute truth. you know, i can believe now that it's the best effort, if that makes sense. >> jayson, you mentioned friends earlier. did they include any former journalists or anyone in the newsrooms where you worked? are you in contact with -- >> yes, yes, a number of them. you know, over the years it's actually become, i would say initially afterwards there was maybe one or two of my former colleagues who were in touch with me. now i would say it's a little under -- maybe around two dozen. but some former editors of mine, certainly some reporters who are friends of mine. one of the common things you'll see, even the ones that are still at the "times," is that many of them share -- or not shared, but share something with me personal, in the sense that they've been through something in their life where they've made an enormous mistake. now, the public may not know about that mistake, it may be

private. >> it didn't involve journalism. >> right. but some of those people have reconnected. >> i have a second part. did you ever try to make it right with any of the people that you lied to and about, like the lynches or any number of people? >> yes. >> did you. >> yes. >> could you talk about that a little bit? >> nope. >> why? >> i think those are private conversations and they should stay private. >> well, they're not private conversations, because it happened in the public >> what's your question? did i apologize to everyone? >> did you say, "i'm sorry"? >> see, i don't want to say about specific situations, but let's put it this way. i've been in touch with some of the people that i've written about, and i have made apologies to them that don't make any excuses. >> so i have a question. why is that something you don't want to share? >> because i think it's private conversations. whether those people reached out to me or i reached out to

them, they made a decision to allow me into some private aspect of their life, and i shouldn't drag them back into this mess in a public way. >> ok, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> jayson, i want to talk about today. you have a new second career. >> yes. >> and i'd like to know what gives you -- where did you get the credentials, aside from your experiences, to give psychiatric help to anybody? >> i do not give psychiatric help. >> what do you do? >> psychiatrists do, they're medical doctors. >> so what do you do? >> i work in a psychological practice that has psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and me as a life coach. >> what's a life coach? >> there are many different definitions. >> i don't know what a life coach is. >> i'll define at least my role and not speak for everyone. in my role i sort of focus on mental health, and i tend to work with -- when i work with

people who have serious mental illnesses, bipolar depression, schizophrenia, i'm sort of an adjunct team member, so you'll paired with -- the client will have me, plus a psychiatrist, maybe even plus a psychiatrist and a psychologist, and i'm meant to sort of be the person on the ground level working with them on a day-to-day basis, working on triggers, mitigating symptoms, helping them communicate better with their treatment providers and helping their family members. i also assist people individually on my own who don't have serious mental illnesses with issues like motivation, you know -- >> but you're essentially making all that up. i mean, you have no credentials to do that. >> making all that up? >> well, you are doing it -- going along and doing it as -- from your life experiences, but you've never had a degree in psychology or social work or -- >> that's correct. but it's not psychology or social work. >> well, yes, it is. >> well, actually,ñi no, it

isn't. >> yes, it is. >> the practice of therapy -- >> if you're working with very sick people day to day, mentoring them and working with them, you are in a practice -- >> what does the leader of an a.a. group do or a peer-to-peer support group do, depression, bipolar -- >> they've gotten trained to do that. >> it's peer-to-peer training. in a.a., they don't do training. in n.a., they don't do training. it's based on your own experience. so there's this concept that -- and national institutes of mental health and also the national substitutes of health support bringing in more peer specialists, people who based on their own experiences and recovery, can augment treatment by clinical professionals who don't have life experiences in these areas. i mean, you can quibble or battle with it -- >> well, i've got a lot of quibbles with it, sorry.

[inaudible] >> i think the best way to answer that question is i think that there are areas where those character flaws certainly team like they're gone. i'll never say that they're completely gone. there are other areas where i clearly can identify in my mind -- and i'm not giving a list -- i can identify character flaws that still exist today and are still a struggle for me today. one of the big differences, i think, is that i'm sort of much more open with people that i work with and family members and friends about what my flaws are, and that sort of helps me set boundaries. like these are areas i'm not going to get near or these are things i'm not going to do, or areas where i'm doing very well and i can help people learn from my experience. [inaudible] >> no. you mean in terms of areas where i think i still have a problem? >> i'm just a little confused

as to how life experiences [inaudible] >> it doesn't. the experience of lying doesn't qualify you to do anything. >> but you said your life experiences as a coach -- >> that's right, but for you the most significant part of my life will always be what happened in my career in journalism. for me it's not necessarily the thing that was the most difficult struggle or the most meaningful struggle. my struggle with bipolar disorder has been much more personally painful and much more difficult. i've had to learn much more from that than my experience in journalism, not to take away from it. but for you on the outside, the narrative for you is the scandal of "the times." that doesn't necessarily mean that it is the most valuable or biggest experience truly in my life, you know what i mean? ok. >> i have a quick question back here. one more question, jayson.

do you have to prove yourself every day to everyone that you talk to and meet that you're telling the truth? >> i don't generally think so. you know, it surprises me a bit that i don't have to. i tend to be pretty open with people about my background. i tend to share, you know, general overview and relevant details and answer any questions that they have. and usually the response tends to be -- and this is when i'm dealing with somebody highs not a journalist, because the equation generally changes with journalists. but when i'm dealing with someone who is not a journalist in one of the areas where i do my work, it tends to actually help humanize them for me, or humanize me for them. and i think we're able to develop in some ways through sort of me admitting that, you know, i am not this sort of perfect whatever who doesn't make mistakes and that i have

made enormous mistakes that are costly and painful. i think it helps sort of us develop a more honest connection, that kind of honesty that goes beyond just the question of truth and not truth, but that open honesty, that honesty where they can make a mistake and they can lie to me. i can work with them and continue to -- they know i can forgive, because i've been able to forgive myself. so there are a lot of things, i think, in there that play some kind of role. >> and this is putting it very bluntly, but do you -- why should anyone really ever believe what you have to say? >> you know, like i said before, it's really up to individuals to make determinations on their own. they've got -- people have to decide for themselves what they're willing to believe or not. it's not actually -- you know,

i couldn't even -- what's the best way to put it? i would expect people to put the same skepticism to what i say, you know -- i would expect them to sort of be as skeptical as possible, check it out, don't stop just with the idea of, oh, this guy once told a lie, because i'm pretty sure most of you guys told a lie at one point. but check it out, you know. come to whatever conclusion you want to or need to. >> jayson, around about the same time as the scandal at the "times," there were two other high-profile instances of wrong dog by professionals. there was the new republic and jack kelly at "usa today." what do you think about that? what do you think about them and what reflections might you offer? how would you compare the way the media treated you and how

the media treated them? >> it's really hard for me to say, because i think my view of all of that coverage, including my own coverage, was absolutely distorted. so it's really hard to make a comment about the second part of it. >> i'm sorry, absolutely distorted? what -- >> it's distorted in the sense that many's so personally invested in it, it would be like -- i mean, you could say, yes, i thought the coverage of washington lee was decent or good, but, you know, always whenever you're involved in a story or close to a story, i think it kind of throws off your -- my sensitive meter, or at least with me. but what i was saying originally, in terms of steven glass and jack kelly, just knowing their stories from the outside and not knowing, you know, intimately details from them, think i there are a lot of lessons that can be learned that are slightly different and some that are similar.

i don't really have any personal insight on why they did what they did. i have speculation based on what i've read in public indications. so i probably shouldn't -- if i'm -- publications. so i probably shouldn't -- if i'm asking for people to give my version of events and give me a chance, i probably shouldn't kind of analyze the motives of others who i haven't talked to. >> how would you compare the media handling of them? >> i don't remember the glass coverage as well. i thought that -- you know, i thought that my story both because it was at the "times" and "the times" was writing the biggest story on it and because of the problems that were occurring inside the newsroom at the time, it took on a completely different character than, i think, some of the later coverage. in looking at jack kelly's

story, from my personal perspective, a lot of my own questions about why it happened never really got answered. but i don't know if there are answers out there. i don't know if they were available. i don't know if he knew at that time or knows now. >> you had a job at the "new york times" that a vast majority of journalists can only dream about having. number one, did you ever appreciate that fact, and number two, did you ever enjoy your job? >> yes and yes. >> did you appreciate the fact that -- >> yes. >> and even when you were in this fog, as you say, you were enjoying being at the "times," you were enjoying writing all these -- >> well, i was in a fog and towards the ends i was enjoying very little, period. but there was a point certainly where i completely -- i mean, i loved and enjoyed being at the "times" and in the profession. >> what did you enjoy about it

most? >> exactly what i said. i'm curious, i like to write and i like to help people. >> but was it really -- in the ends was it really still the writing and was it really helping people? >> yeah. at a point -- you asked me if there was any point when that's the case, yes, of course, yeah. >> was there a hole in "the new york times" fact-checking process that you were aware of that allowed you to sort of deceive the public for so long? because i'm more interested in -- >> none other than dysfunction. i mean, there was just general dysfunction during that time period. "the times" actually has a fairly -- has many layers of fact-checking when you compare it to most newspapers. at the very least, one or two extra layers of -- >> how did you get through all the fact checkers at the "new york times"? >> it wasn't like a

deliberately designed plan. it happened because -- i think because we were particularly stretched at that point, or it happened -- you know, maybe the first time it would have happened no matter what, or the first two or three. i don't think it could have gone as long if we hadn't been sort of as stretched and people hadn't been as fatigued as they were. this makes a good ethical case for taking care of your employees, those editors. >> you said you got into this profession to help people. ostensibly some of the fabrications you could have made up could have been to help people, in some convoluted sense. >> true. but they weren't. >> did it ever occur to you to -- >> to make something up that may possibly help someone? >> you did it because you were lazy or in a fog. >> like i said, pavlov's dog. the bell rings, that's my job, ok, i've got to find a way to

do this job i can't do right now. so i was definitely not as directed as it would have taken to have some crusading thing that i made up, if that makes sense. but that's a good question. go ahead. >> after all of this came out, did any other journalist come to you and confide in you that they had done the same things as you've done, only not on the same level? >> don't want to answer that question. don't want to answer that question. >> why not? >> because, if anyone came to me after the point that i was a journalist, it would have been a personal conversation, so -- >> jay sob, thank you. -- jayson, thank you. i did say earlier that we'd give the media a chance to ask questions, so this would be the time, if the media folk want to

come down here. the rest of you are welcome to stay, jayson, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. thank you, guys. you're a good audience. [applause] >> tomorrow on "washington journal," david mark, senior editor for "politico," looks ahead to the health care debate in the senate. airline pilots association international, president sapt john traitor talks about safety issues, cockpit distractions, flying while fired, labor issues and pay. shane harris discusses sign attacks against adversaries, including iraq. mayor jay williams of youngstown, ohio, talks about his city's economy, and math helm has the latest on international negotiations on a global climate change treaty at copenhagen. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> coming up next, q&a with