The `Blair Watch' project

Searching out the past journalistic transgressions of Jayson Blair has
become something of a new pastime, encouraged, we might add, by his old bosses
at The New York Times. Here's our contribution.

Before making headlines of his own with his work on the national desk, Blair
spent some time on the paper's New York metro desk. While there, he covered the
Metropolitan TV Alliance's efforts to build a replacement TV-transmission tower
post-Sept. 11.

For the most part, the stories appear to have been embellishment-free.

There was one missstep about a year ago, though, when he wrote an article
that said broadcasters were pushing for a tower with a restaurant and
observation deck.

That came as a surprise to the MTVA, which told Broadcasting & Cable at
the time that it wasn't the case and that instead, a number of designs were
under consideration.

Our source suggested that Blair was using the article to smoke out the real
information from his source.