L'AFFAIRE BLAIR.(journalistic misconduct by Jayson Blair)

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In "The Fabulist: A Novel,"published last week by Simon & Schuster, Stephen Glass, once a young star writer for The New Republic, who, in 1998, was fired for fabricating a spectacular series of stories, tells the story of "Stephen Glass,"a young star writer for "The Washington Weekly,"who gets fired for fabricating a spectacular series of stories. Like Stephen Glass, "Stephen Glass"fakes not only the stories but also the notes and documentation to back them up, the better to fool his magazine's editors and its fact checker, Victoria. Victoria maintains a "rulebook,"which begins like this:

acceptable forms of verification, in order of priority