SACRAMENTO, CA - The New York Times has been making headlines with the revelation that its star reporter, Jayson Blair, filed stories from places he had not been, freighted with quotes he made up, and filled with information either bogus or stolen from other writers. His work is in the tradition of Janet Cooke of the Washington Post, whose celebrated tale of a youthful junkie proved to be fiction, and fabulist Stephen Glass of The New Republic, now attempting to cash in on his fraud in a new book.

What drives this problem is the politically correct culture that dominates newsrooms, including those in California, where Mr. Blair's bogus jottings went unchallenged. It was the San Antonio Express-News that blew the whistle. They noticed because Mr. Blair had stolen their story, which shows that many other papers are not checking. Part of the problem is that the New York Times is the much venerated "newspaper of record," though it shouldn't be.

Long before Jayson Blair, there was another scandal at the Times. Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty whitewashed one of the worst atrocities in history - Stalin's forced famine in Ukraine during 1932-33. Millions perished but according to Duranty there was no famine, nor could there be under a scientifically planned
economy helmed by the Great Leader. Duranty won a Pulitzer but the Times won't renounce it. The Times has somehow retained its underserved reputation, but in reality it's just another liberal big-city daily.

With its politically correct reporting, the Times also assigns infallibility to certain groups, including those promoting environmental causes. As with Mr. Blair's reporting, facts get confused with fiction. Consider this item:

"An article on Nov. 10 about animal rights referred erroneously to an island in the Indian Ocean and to events there involving goats and endangered giant sea sparrows that could possibly lead to the killing of goats by environmental groups. Wrightson Island does not exist; both the island and the events are hypothetical figments from a book (also mentioned in the article), Beginning Again, by David Ehrenfeld. No giant sea sparrow is known to be endangered by the eating habits of goats."

The source is the December 15, 2002, corrections section of the New York Times. The piece, along with examples of sound reporting, may be found in PRI's new Index of Leading Environmental Indicators.

In New York and everywhere, politically correct reporting makes for weak or biased coverage of hard news. And there is plenty of this in California's capital. As PRI's upcoming education Index will reveal, countless millions of education dollars are missing and accountability scarcely exists. Few reporters seem interested in this
story, which only encourages politicians and bureaucrats to push the envelope.

As a de-facto one-party state, California is a target-rich environment, which should encourage reporters to crack down. Of course, reporters need watching too, even if they work for the New York Times.