{"id":139,"date":"2009-08-20T23:44:11","date_gmt":"2009-08-20T23:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html"},"modified":"2009-08-20T23:44:11","modified_gmt":"2009-08-20T23:44:11","slug":"can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html","title":{"rendered":"Can Liars Become Leaders? Disgraced Reporter Jayson Blair Is Now… A Life Coach?!?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"Jayson<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nAP is reporting<\/span><\/a><\/span> disgraced
\nex-reporter Jayson Blair – famous for plagiarizing (and in some cases, completely
\nfabricating) the news while a New York Times<\/i> reporter back in 2003
\n– has a new career these days: Life Coach<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blair, who was once
\na wunderkind, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has admitted substance
\nabuse issues in his past. All of these things, according to the organization
\nthat now employs him, actually make him highly qualified to empathize with his
\nclients.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hm. <\/span><\/p>\n

I’ll say this. I
\nbelieve in second chances for addicts and those with bipolar and other mental
\nillnesses. I’ve seen people make turnarounds that are nothing less than
\nremarkable. And I don’t know Mr. Blair personally, so it’s difficult to judge
\nhim or get a feel for where he’s at now. <\/span><\/p>\n

As for ethics, I don’t take issue with a reformed bad guy speaking from his hard-won experience to counsel others on what to do, or not to do. That only makes sense to me. How else do we share wisdom, if not from experience? We see former gang-bangers going back to the ‘hood to become youth group leaders, don’t we?<\/p>\n

However, that
\nsaid, <\/span>with the
\nwhole field of life coaches out there from which to choose, I doubt I’d personally go with
\none who had such potential to be a con man. After all, his whole history was in making people believe untruths. Blair bamboozled his coworkers, employers and the public in general, who placed their trust in him. That may have been a function of his illness or his youth. But before I plunked my money down on career or life advice, I’d want to make darn rootin’-tootin’ sure that was the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

And interestingly, a visit to Blair’s coaching website’s “about me<\/a>” page mentions nothing whatsoever about his scandalous past or his downfall at the New York Times<\/i>. Take from that<\/i> what you will…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Subscribe to receive updates from Everyday Ethics or follow us on Twitter<\/a>!<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The AP is reporting disgraced ex-reporter Jayson Blair – famous for plagiarizing (and in some cases, completely fabricating) the news while a New York Times reporter back in 2003 – has a new career these days: Life Coach. Blair, who was once a wunderkind, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has admitted substance abuse issues in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,28,39,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-hillary-fields","category-media-ethics","category-personal-responsibility","category-social-ethics"],"yoast_head":"\nCan Liars Become Leaders? Disgraced Reporter Jayson Blair Is Now... A Life Coach?!? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Liars Become Leaders? Disgraced Reporter Jayson Blair Is Now... A Life Coach?!? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The AP is reporting disgraced ex-reporter Jayson Blair – famous for plagiarizing (and in some cases, completely fabricating) the news while a New York Times reporter back in 2003 – has a new career these days: Life Coach. Blair, who was once a wunderkind, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has admitted substance abuse issues in…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-20T23:44:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/files\/import\/Jayson%20Blair.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hfields\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Can Liars Become Leaders? Disgraced Reporter Jayson Blair Is Now... A Life Coach?!? - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Can Liars Become Leaders? Disgraced Reporter Jayson Blair Is Now... A Life Coach?!? - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"The AP is reporting disgraced ex-reporter Jayson Blair – famous for plagiarizing (and in some cases, completely fabricating) the news while a New York Times reporter back in 2003 – has a new career these days: Life Coach. Blair, who was once a wunderkind, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has admitted substance abuse issues in…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html","og_site_name":"Everyday Ethics","article_published_time":"2009-08-20T23:44:11+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/files\/import\/Jayson%20Blair.jpg"}],"author":"hfields","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html","name":"Can Liars Become Leaders? Disgraced Reporter Jayson Blair Is Now... A Life Coach?!? - Everyday Ethics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/files\/import\/Jayson%20Blair.jpg","datePublished":"2009-08-20T23:44:11+00:00","dateModified":"2009-08-20T23:44:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/files\/import\/Jayson%20Blair.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/files\/import\/Jayson%20Blair.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/can-liars-become-leaders-disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-is-now-a-life-coach.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Can Liars Become Leaders? Disgraced Reporter Jayson Blair Is Now… A Life Coach?!?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/","name":"Everyday Ethics","description":"Moral Ethics Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f","name":"hfields","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","caption":"hfields"},"description":"Hillary Fields is a born-and-bred New Yorker, brought up on the not-so-mean streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side. She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}