Recent events at the New York Times probably mean they won't be running that hideously annoying circulation TV spot anytime soon... you know the one where the smug yuppie couple talk about how, when their Sunday paper is delivered, “She goes straight for Arts & Leisure; I check out the magazine”....

The priceless payoff line, though, is when a really smug guy slowly removes his half-frame reading glasses and intones: "The New York Times...I know it will tell me things I won’t see or read anywhere else". tsk tsk...

As Salon said the other day, the one foreign word every journalist knows how to spell is schadenfreude, and there's certainly been enough of that going round in the aftermath of the Jayson Blair debacle.

Not knowing enough about how the 'Times' internal processes were able to break down so dramatically, and not being privy to whatever relationship there was between Blair, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd; I really can't say whether I should feel sorry for the Times for having been played for suckers despite their genuine attempts to mentor and help this kid; or whether I think they got what they deserved.

I agree with Elmer Smith's take on it, in the Philly Daily News - that what Blair did should not, but inevitably will, be linked to his race.

What I don't need to hear right now, though, is any details of whatever monster book deal he's going to end up with. Please! My belief in human nature is fragile enough at the best of times...

And I'm not even going to dignify this guy with a second thought.

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