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Standing in the shadows of Jayson Blair
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The salacious story of frat-boy hazing that resulted in the death of Matthew Carrington run by the LA Times on March 29 was too good to be true. After printing some corrections in late March, today the Times' California section includes an editors note with detailed corrections and notice of the firing of reporter Eric Slater. But close examination shows the Times may have been working out fears of their own Jayson Blair, rather than dealing with the issue at hand, which seems little more than sloppy reporting. Where Slater wrote that the death resulted from drinking 5 gallons of water from a rubber bag, authorities said it was more than 5 gallons of water drunk from a jug. A quote was missatributed. Someone else had a day planner described to them over the phone, rather than "being shown" it. Bag vs. jug? Hardly on par with "reporting" news stories from West Virginia while not leaving your NY apartment.
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