CHAPTER ONE

Fire. I lied and I Lied and then I Lied some more. I lied about where I had been, I lied about where I had found information, and I lied about how I wrote the story. And these were no everyday little white lies they were complete fantasies, embellished down to the tiniest made-up detail. I lied about a planes flight I never took, about sleeping in a car I never rented, about a landmark on a highway I had never been on. I lied about a guy who helped me at a gas station that I found on the Internet and about crossing railroad tracks I knew existed only because of aerial photographs in my private collection. I lied about a house I had never been to and decorations and furniture in a living room I had seen only in photographs in an archive maintained by Times photos editors. In the end-justifies-the-means environment I worked in, I had grown accustomed to lying. I told my share of lies and became as adept as anyone at getting away with it unquestioned and unscathed.

Jayson Blair was born on columbia, Maryland, son of a federal worker and schoolteacher. While at Centreville High School, in Clifton, Virginia he showed interest in journalism. He attended University of Maryland, College Park (UM) as a journalism major. He was a student intern at the Boston Globe and The Washington Post. Blair was the editor in chief of the independent student newspaper.