And While I Am Being A Punk

Some of you know that 3 years ago Jayson Blair was a very promising young reporter at the New York Times. Trouble was that Blair was fabricating portions of his news stories and openly plagarizing from other reporters to a degree that was breathtaking. He was busted in the Spring of 2003, in one of biggest journalism scandals of all time. Jayson had also been smoking crack and drinking like a mad dog. Soon after his firing, he was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. The next year, he wrote a book about his downfall at the Times. It had mixed reviews and probably was treated with plenty of prejudice within the American media just because of the stain many felt Blair left on the profession. There have been worse scandals, in my mind.

Word has it that Blair is working on another book--gee, I guess getting a famous name for telling lies does pay!--and this one is to be about bipolar disorder and, from what I've read, will address his experiences with it. Blair's website does seem to trot the word Recovery out a great deal. That's the big prize in mental illness, for patients at any rate. It is an interesting term coming from someone who's been in the game not even 3 years. It's interesting, too, because the standard measure of recovery that's used in the psych biz is 50 percent of greater symptom remission. Fifty percent is better than nothing of course, but it's a bar a mouse could jump over. So I'll be interested to see how big a role recovery plays in his book.