When it comes to ideological partners in journalism, there is still no honor among theives. NPR is salting the wounds of the NY Times over this Jayson Blair diaster. NPR's Melissa Block found this quote of Howell Raines, NYT's executive editor, boasting about their affirmative action program to the National Association of Black Journalists two years ago.

"This campaign has made our staff better and, more importantly, more diverse"
interesting side note: Raines actually mentions Blair by name in this speech

according to Raines himself that was about the time he knew Blair had journalistic problems. And so I point out two things from that very short quote. According to Raines, having a lying reporter makes you better, and being diverse is more important than being good.

...and they wonder why their readership is dropping like a rock while total newspaper readership is up.