TheAgitator.com
Failing Upward
Tuesday, May 20th, 2003A week ago, the Washington Post’s Terry Neal wrote a widely cited online column about how Jayson Blair’s disgrace had nothing to do with diversity. Neal decried the way fallen white journalists get second acts, where black journalists sink off into obscurity.
By the way, Barnicle was “punished” with a nice job at MSNBC. Shalit is back in journalism. And Glass is back on the road to fame and wealth, with book and movie deals. Meanwhile, Smith and former Post reporter Janet Cooke, an African American who fabricated a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, disappeared into lives of obscurity. The last we heard of Cooke, in news stories a few years ago, she was selling make-up for $6 an hour at a department store in Kalamazoo, Mich., and eating cereal for dinner. She tried to sell her story a few years ago and no one bit. Iâ??m willing to go out on a limb and bet Blairâ??s career trajectory from here follows Cookeâ??s more closely than Glassâ??s.
Neal would have lost that bet. Blair just signed with a literary agent, and is entertaining book and movie offers.
Terry Neal has it all wrong: In MY article about Janet Cooke, she and her brother and their drunk friend find a downed airplane with no survivors and a huge bag of cash. They decide to split it up after they are sure nobody is looking for the money, but in the end, their SIMPLE PLAN is thwarted by her wife and her brother, Billy-Bob Thornton. I’m sure I can win a Pulitzer with Janet Cooke’s heartwrenching tale…
What’s wrong w. eating cereal for dinner?
The reaction to the Blair story was predictable. When the story broke, many minority reporters I know said in private conversations among themselves that it would take only a day or two before some people erupted in paroxysms of indignation and anger about the effort to diversify newsrooms. (emphasis mine)
I guess Neal’s editor struck out the words “…foaming at the lips as they uttered racial slurs and fondling their freshly dry-cleaned white robes” at the end of that last sentence. Because, of course, anyone who opposes “diversity” probably burns crosses on lawns.
Who’s fault is it that Janet Cooke couldn’t find something better than selling make-up? A racist white society’s? Or Janet Cooke’s?
nice!
Bottom Line:
Everyone feels some form of pressure. What a fool to lie to millions and wonder why you’re eating cereal instead of steak!
Ambition is good. However, it’s awful when the person takes it so serious that they take a risk and kill their career. She had to know at one point and time that they would want to know who this kid really was. If she would have wrote about Jimmy the grown-up loser – there would be no problem.
Lastly, people like her are weak… and having only cereal to eat will make her even weaker.
cool!
Everyone feels some form of pressure. What a fool to lie to millions and wonder why you’re eating cereal instead of steak!
Paris is Interesting. But is she really worth making all this fuss over? I mean come on! :)
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