Editors at the paper are looking into complaints about fudged datelines, composite scenes and too-good-to-be-true quotes, the sources say.
On Thursday evening, a Times spokeswoman confirmed that questions were being asked in the wake of the Times probe of Jayson Blair, who earlier this month resigned after being accused of plagiarism. “Our Jayson Blair coverage has brought forth a variety of questions and tips that have resulted in phone calls with reporters here on staff,” says the spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis. “The phone calls have produced no information that appears to warrant any action at this time.” Asked specifically about three reporters, Mathis said she could not specify which employees have been contacted “for reasons of privacy.”
While any further scandal, regardless of the magnitude, would be a severe blow to the paper, no one has suggested that other reporters have problems approaching the level of widespread fraud and deception that Blair seems to have perpetrated.
The new inquiry is the latest twist in an extraordinary series of events at the Times. On Sunday, the newspaper devoted four pages to Blair and the havoc he wreaked; two of those pages were dedicated to corrections. On Wednesday afternoon, the Times rented a movie theatre and hosted a meeting for staff members, who vented their anger and frustration at the paper’s executive editor, managing editor and publisher.
Following the Times’ own account of the Blair fiasco, which included the information that in April 2002 one of Blair’s immediate supervisors had sent a memo saying the young reporter had to be stopped from writing for the paper, top management is under extraordinary pressure to show it is listening to the concerns of its staff-and of outsiders.
Earlier this week, the Drudge Report briefly teased an item about an investigation into one of the paper’s best-known reporters. The teaser was quickly taken down the same evening it was posted.
The widening of the Times probe comes in the midst of persistent rumors that reporters from papers around the country are “scrubbing” several well-known Times scribes.
