NOW IT’S A SHAFER VS. SULLIVAN CAGE MATCH! Sullivan wins this one handily (1) by quoting Shafer’s boss back at him (nice touch!) and (2) because Shafer’s title — “Defending Howell Raines: He didn’t catch Jayson Blair. You didn’t either.” — is so mind-bogglingly dumb. (Of course, that’s probably not Shafer’s fault — titles usually aren’t the author’s idea. But it’s still dumb.)

No, I didn’t catch Jayson Blair. But it was Howell Raines’ job, not mine, to do so, and he had plenty of warning. Solution: The Times should pay Raines as much as it pays me!

Actually, I think that may be coming. . . .

UPDATE: Andy Freeman emails on the catching-Jayson-Blair angle:

Are you sure? That is, you may not have personally caught Blair, but who did?

The first that I saw of the story was some blogger commenting on the similarity between Blair’s work and that of a real journalist

Yes, I know that one of the folks associated with a plagarized party had complained months earlier, but nothing happened.

However, a couple of days after I saw the blogger comment (which may have quoted the complaining journalist), the Blair story started to get traction.

One of the traditional roles of “the media” is to put a spotlight on things. The NYT, for example, isn’t the first to break most stories, but measures its worth by the spotlight effect.

Bloggers are a lot of competition for that role.

I actually don’t think that blogs have played much of a role in this particular process — except, perhaps, in keeping the Times’ justifications under skeptical scrutiny. But I could be wrong, I guess.