Visiting Filmmakers Series presents: A Fragile Trust and Director Samantha Grant 4/30 4:30pm JCC

Wednesday, April 30, 2014 4:30 PM to 7:15 PM EDT
Johnson Center, Cinema

A Fragile Trust tells the shocking story of Jayson Blair, the most infamous serial plagiarist of our time, and how he unleashed the massive scandal that rocked the New York Times and the entire world of journalism.  In 2003 Blair was caught plagiarizing the work of other reporters and supplementing his own reporting with fabricated details in dozens of different stories published in the Times. The fact that Blair is African American was emphasized again and again as accounts of the "Blair Affair" served up sordid details in a soap-opera style tale of deception, drug abuse, racism, mental illness, hierarchy, white guilt, and power struggles inside the hallowed halls of the New York Times.

The Jayson Blair scandal is at the most basic level a compelling, character-driven narrative about an important chapter in the history of journalism. It is also a complex story about power, ethics, representation, race, and accountability in the mainstream media. This is the first film to tell the whole sordid story of the scandal while exploring these deeper themes. With more and more publications moving to online-only formats and plagiarism on the rise, this cautionary tale about the slippery slope of ethical transgressions is more relevant than ever.

The Skype Q&A with Samantha Grant will be moderated by GMU's Journalism Program director Beth Jannery.

Free and open to the public.

Sponsored by Film & Media Studies, and cosponsored by African & African American Studies, Communication, Cultural Studies, English, Film & Video Studies, Psychology, and Women & Gender Studies.