Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at the New York Times [Hardcover]

Jayson Blair (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2004

BURNING DOWN MY MASTERS' HOUSE is a memoir of the rise, transgressions and recovery of Jayson Blair, a former journalist at The New York Times turned mental health advocate, who details how he learned that he was the master of his house – but not before he burned it down and hurt friends, colleagues, damaged the reputation and brand name of America’s leading daily newspaper and cost the executive editor, Howell Raines, and the managing editor, Gerald Boyd, their jobs. Blair accepts full responsibility for his transgression in the memoir and notes that while the cost for him has been his reputation and a high-flying career in journalism, the cost of not learning the lessons he did about self-control, pride, substance abuse and mental illness can be their own be a death sentence for many. His hope is that his memoir can help others not fall from the precipice he dangled from for so long. In this memoir, Blair recounts the details of his struggle with manic depression and its power to confer great advantages that are attractive to those who suffer from the illness at the same time it destroys them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

We know that Blair is a world-class Pinocchio. During his tenure at the New York Times (1998e padding though. In a nod to the book's subtitle, Blair lavishes attention on his (presumably legitimate) coverage of numerous stories, especially of the D.C.-area sniper case, failing to realize that readers' interest will fade when he stops discussing the inner workings of the Times and the mechanisms and consequences of his lying. But we will credit Blair and consider this as nonfiction. The memoir begins with the collapse of his house of cards, then flips back to his early upbringing in Columbia, Md., and swiftly forward to his hiring as a Times intern while at the University of Maryland. Blair's chronicle of his Times years brims with the inside gossip newshounds love, and he names names while dishing it. Throughout, he levels serious (albeit generally unsubstantiated) charges at the newspaper. One is racism, in both the Times's coverage ("The one thing that was clear was that it took a lot of dead Africans for anyone to notice on West Forty-third Street") and its treatment of employees ("a black recovering drug addict at The Times was not going to be given the same leeway that a white one might be"). Blair claims that Metro desk editor Jonathan Landman, who first cast doubts on his reporting, wrote in an internal note that "minority candidates [for hiring] were always sub-par compared to others." Then there's the bartering of news coverage for favors. "Public relations people," Blair reports, "substituted theater tickets, free meals and drinks and, sometimes, even sex for mentions. Journalists at The Times were considered to have a weak spot for sex...." Most startling, though, are Blair's accusations of shoddy journalistic practices condoned by Times management. "The message was clear: getting it right was not as important as getting it fast." He contends that the Times allowed "star" reporters to slap their byline on stories written in part or wholly by stringers and freelancers, and he exposes what he calls "toe-touch" reporting: "A toe-touch was a popular and sanctioned way at the newspaper to get a dateline on a story by reporting and writing it in one location, then flying in simply so you could put the name of the city where the news was happening at the top of the story. It is hard to imagine how many thousands of dollars are spent on 'toe-touch datelines' each month at The Times." Blair also accuses the newspaper of "no-touch" reporting. These charges will make the book necessary reading for some, but they serve Blair, too, apparently providing for him some basis for his actions. "The cognitive logic of my belief that I could get away with not visiting a city that I was supposed to be writing from can easily be understood, though not excused"; so rather than reporting from the field, as he told colleagues and friends he was, Blair composed many of his stories while hiding out in his Brooklyn apartment, relying on information from phone interviews and the Internet to fill the column inches. The book, in fact, is filled with excuses-cum-explanations, most of a personal nature. Blair says that for years he suffered from alcohol and cocaine addiction (he's been sober since early 2002) and from depression, then manic depression, that led him, during his last days at the Times, into psychosis and a suicide attempt described here in detail. And while he claims to take responsibility for his actions, he swipes steadily at the Times and its "callous" managers, and at its "end-justifies-the-means" environment, where he was treated like "a rag doll." It is Blair's notoriety that will first draw attention to this book, and it is his charges against the Times that should push it onto bestseller lists. His rancor, his excuses and his predilection for payback undermine the integrity of his admissions and apologies, however, and will go far to demoting the entire matter and his part in it to a cautionary footnote to the history of journalism. As for the charges, in spite of Blair's reputation for lying, the Times must respond to them; if true, then by acting upon them the newspaper will only increase the transparency committed to by its hiring of an ombudsman, a direct result of the Blair affair. Yet Blair himself remains opaque, despite the book's confessional nature; the evident slyness of so much of this chronicle speaks at the least of a manipulation of truth. It may be that what we read in this fierce, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing volume is truth, albeit one man's version; it may also be that once again the author is hiding out, as it were, weaving fairy tales that we buy at our own risk.
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Review

Contains some of the most poignant and moving passages ever to appear in a book of its kind. -- The Weekly Standard

He bypasses excuses, and holds only himself responsible for the journalistic fiasco that he created. -- The Amsterdam News

I can recognize the newsroom ... The facade of the building is familar, but the foundation is rotten. -- Black Issues Book Review

The gravamen ... doesn't have to do with the Times at all but with Blair's psychological condition, which he diagnoses, persuasively. -- The New Yorker

The inside dope he provides to readers about what allegedly goes on there are anything but a boring read. -- The Washington Post Bookworld

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: New Millennium (March 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193240726X
• ISBN-13: 978-1932407266
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,149,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If you must read it, borrow it from the library, March 18, 2004

By 

Thomas Veil "thomasveil" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at the New York Times (Hardcover)

In America, convicted criminals are not legally allowed to profit from their crimes. I see no compelling reason why a serial liar like Jayson Blair should somehow be an exception to this rule. Folks, this country has a terrific network of public libraries that would be happy to lend you this book free of charge or, if it is checked out, reserve it in your name. In the meantime, you can read something more rewarding like "Fast Food Nation" or "The Da Vinci Code."

But I digress. Let me tell you why reading this book should be a low priority. Jayson Blair simply is not a credible author. He weaves a few too many fantastic tales here as well as more than a few self-serving ones. The clearest and most credible information presented in the book merely serves to indict him further for being deeply ungrateful.

He never seems to realize that he was presented with a once-in-a-lifetime chance by the New York Times - one which plenty of journalists I know would have given their arm for - one which he blew to high heaven. As to why he blew this so badly, he presents a multiplicity of uncompelling reasons. He attempts to claim that his behavior was far from atypical at the Times but only manages to cite the case of Rick Bragg, whose failure to credit a stringer came out a few weeks after Blair's own pattern was reported. Jayson Blair may be incapable of realizing this - and he certainly does not in his book - but few newspapers would have allowed him a future after Metro Editor Jon Landman's famous memo (to the effect that Blair needed to stop "writing for the Times. Right now.") For whatever reason - and Blair doesn't shed any real light on it - the Times was determined to see no evil where he was concerned. Not only did it fail to act, but in the crucial subsequent year it gave him choice reporting roles in the Washington sniper case and domestic reporting on the Iraq War. This seems a lot less like the racism that Blair purports to have seen than a very ill-starred favoritism. Blair - again - can't recognize this. Where editor Gerald Boyd is concerned, and Boyd was most responsible for tabling Landman's memo and keeping Blair around the paper for that last crucial year, Blair can only manage to be scornful.

Like Stephen Glass' own attempt at writing, Burning Down My Master's House is an embarrassing and sloppy mess of attempts at self-justification (including, as the book's title would indicate, a deeply confused effort to play the race card), half-baked vendettas against old colleagues, and claims that - in light of Blair's known career of deceit - simply aren't credible. If you must read it - if you derive some pleasure from Blair's pathetic tale of self-pity - I guarantee you this: you won't want to read it twice. Make it a library book - you won't regret it.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars WARNING! KEEP AWAY FROM THE AUDIO VERSION!!!!, October 10, 2005

By 

Rock Quarry "rockq" (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Burning Down My Masters House: Life at the New York Times (Audio CD)

Holy Moley!! Blair is the narrator of the audio version of his book. He speaks in such a passionless, monotone voice that you run the risk of falling asleep while listening to it in your car. James Earl Jones he's not.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The lies of a liar, October 22, 2005

By 

J. Hamm - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at the New York Times (Hardcover)

The "victim" approach is not acceptable when you're a discovered liar. This book is nothing more than an attempt to blame the entire Blair disaster on something or someone other than himself. His actions are because he is black, pressured, a drug user, depressed, etc. Reality should set in now, he did what he did because he is a sociopathic liar. If you want to read a book that gives you insight into nothing, this is a good choice.