From today's "Memo Pad" column in Women's Wear Daily, on whether Jayson Blair ruined a potential book by talking to the Observer:
Tina Brown: "Blair has blown it in my view...There is nothing left for him now except a reality show costarring with Baghdad Bob."
Janice Min, executive editor of Us Weekly: "When you screw up, the first thing a celebrity is supposed to say is that you're sorry, that you don't understand your own behavior and beg for forgiveness. Jayson Blair did none of those things. It seemed that he had public sympathy on his side, that The New York Times had overcompensated [for what he'd done], but he exhausted any remaining goodwill people who were willing to extend him. Celebrity publicists always say the first thing you do is act contrite. And there was none of that."
Publisher Judith Regan: "Truthfully I don't see it, I don't get it...Jayson Blair is a liar. He's dishonest. Why would I want to publish a nonfiction book by him? I think that memoir is a big 'who cares?'"