Jayson Blair and stupidity by committee

Editor Charles Stough explains the groupthink idiocy that can allow "journalists" like Blair to do what they do:

....For the Times is unfortunately not the only paper where an anointed doofus gets less scrutiny than most reporters. The Times is a sadder case because one assumes that its managers have been excellent reporters; but what of other papers where managers happen by bozo explosion, one committee lizard hiring the next one, until finally the big decisions rest with posers who don't know the bus barn from the Board of Education.
Such managers aren't equipped to spot incongruities of fiction-writing reporters, assuming that management wants to....

There's more here, and it's all good.