No Jayson Blair
: Emily Bell writes in the Guardian that Andrew Gilligan is no Jayson Blair.
Right. He’s worse.
Blair was merely a psychotic liar who didn’t bother trying to act like a journalist in the end and who only wanted to cheat to keep his job.
Gilligan is worse because he does try to act like a real journalist, even as he single-handedly devalues the credibility of the craft.
Gilligan is worse because he operates on an agenda — anti-war, anti-American, anti-Blair.
Gilligan is worse because he has defenders who share his agenda — BBC executives, numbnutty journalist unions — and who will fall with Gilligan and risk bringing down the BBC and, again, the credibility of jouranlism with them.
Gilligan is worse because he does not have even the same decency as a psychotic liar; he does not have the decency to save his network and his profession; he does not have the decency to quit now.
Gilligan is a bad reporter. He is poison to journalism. The last act of his bosses should be to sack him before they then quit.
