Jayson Blair, life coach

Jayson Blair, the disgraced former NY Times reporter who got caught fabricating stories, is now a "certified life coach" in Ashburn, Virginia. Bradley Novicoff of Dangerous Minds writes:

Blair, if you recall, wrote in his four years at the Times nearly 600 articles about the war in Iraq, many of them factually suspect or, worse, distorted by design. Well, who better to handle your "career crisis" than someone like that?! Oh, and Blair's also able to guide you through the choppy waters of substance abuse and bipolar disorder! Blair's website makes no mention of his past misdeeds, but there's no mistaking his still-evident talents as a writer:
"I firmly believe in harnesses the beautiful things about mental illness--whether its creativity and depth, or energy and daydreaming--so that the client can live a safe and healthy life without giving up the things that make them unique."

Jayson Blair: From Liar To Life Coach

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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senorglory

Mind your ethics or you’ll end up like me, eh?
Brainspore

I find the profession of “life coach” a little bit suspect no matter who is claiming the title, but doubly so when the coach in question has shown a pattern of terrible decisions in their own life.
DavidOGuilvy

Life coaching is a serious trend. I do not belive people should have one before they took the effort to review their lifes themselves. I started to make use of one of the many available online tools for life planning. Since them I managed to get way more grip on my life and my desires. 3 years ago I was kicked on the head by the assistent controller in a large bank. Now I get kicked on the head by the CFO being the senior business controller globally. And I managed to improve my fysical condition tremendously: 2 year ago I had to take the car for getting a take away around the corner, now I run a marathon a year and finally managed to quit smoking. I don’t believe in life coaching for myself, but I did wake up and see the value of life planning… My advice google for an online life plan tool you can review anywhere every month. Ther are many tools available, but do not pay as there are some very good free onces as well. I have changed to firmfocus.net but there are many available. Getting a life plan was the best plan ever for me…
Another Aaron

#9 “Leave the man alone. Everyone deserves the right to try and rebuild his life. What would you have him do, throw himself into the ocean? just lay down and die?”

Honestly, yes.

If he really wanted to change his life, he would have picked something like plumbing or carpentry, not something involving telling other people what to think.
JB NicholsonOwens

When I consider the very different reactions to Jayson Blair’s lies and Judith Miller’s lies, I’m surprised anyone isn’t pointing out that the reaction to Blair shows what was missing from the reaction to Miller’s far more important lies.

Where there was a full dual-page color spread and an amphitheater filled with righteous indignation about Blair, there was virtually nothing about Miller’s lies that helped get an illegal unethical invasion and occupation going in Iraq.

Where Blair was run out on a metaphorical rail, Miller was undeservedly allowed to leave the NYT on her own accord not under a cloud of distrust in the popular view. In any fair sense of judgment, this severely tarnishes Miller and the NYT for a very long time. There ought to be almost no time for discussing Blair at all.

How much more distraction from issues that matter shall we silently tolerate? Another Michael Jackson TV special, perhaps?
Anonymous

I’ve dealt with Jayson via email about 6 years back for a school paper, and I was not very impressed with him. He offered to answer some questions I had, but in doing so, only copy and pasted unhelpful bits from his website into the email and replace all’ed he, him, and his with I, letting stand all the base grammar errors that created. The man is a horribly poor writer and seemingly deceptive by nature. Letting him be so he can deceive others isn’t fair; it’s stupid.
Anonymous

For a “writer”, his grammar and punctuation are pretty lax.

Maybe mouthing touchy-feely platitudes to people imagine themselves with problems is just the career for him.
Antinous / Moderator

He gets knocked down
But he gets up again
They’re never gonna keep him down.
Snig

@Eustace
Coffee spit-take. Props.
Cicada

Not an entirely bad idea– if you wanted someone to explain to you why being a junkie was a bad idea, asking one would be your best bet.
I imagine this guy’s full of useful information on journalism and publishing. Might take it with a grain of salt, but useful all the same.
IWood

You know who’s an awesome life coach? Tony Robbins. That man has so much success it made his teeth huge.

The life coaches I know personally? Not so good at life.

Maybe Blair’s got something going on now. But “life coach” generally means run as fast as you can in the other direction, until you find a nice sushi place.
Anonymous

Yeah, yeah. Let’s be honest: You’d be laughing at him no matter what profession he went into. I wouldn’t expect an outpouring of sympathy for him, but hey, he’s paid for his sins career-wise and he’s got to do _something_ to pay the rent the rest of his life. Let him be.
Professor Booty

Sounds like a smart move- outright bullshit is what the life coaching industry is founded on. He should fit right in.
Anonymous

He does actually acknowledge his past. He’s posted multiple articles as recently as 8/21 of this year referring to him as a “disgraced reporter” and a “plagiarist.”

For what it’s worth:
http://www.jayson-blair.com/outside.html
Talia

What #4 said.

Leave the man alone. Everyone deserves the right to try and rebuild his life. What would you have him do, throw himself into the ocean? just lay down and die?
eustace

I took Jayson Blair’s course and it completely changed my life – unfortunately, I had to give my cool, new life back, ’cause it belonged to someone else…
HotPepperMan

Regardless of any individual (and my comments are not focused on any specific person here):

How can anyone with a long history of deception be trusted?

The old saying: “If I told you I was lying would you believe me?”
mdh

He’s still more honest than about 10% of his former colleagues.
Anonymous

Just posted a full 25:00 podcast interview with Jayson Blair about how we went from the plagiarism scandal at the Times, to a mental hospital, to becoming a certified life coach. He talks about his love for journalism and yet admits he should never have been a reporter at the NYT.

Listen here: http://bit.ly/Gb8CF

Mark