Jayson Blair's Credit Card Woe

MAY 15--Sometimes, when a guy's swamped at work--you know, busy piping quotes, inventing sources, falsifying expense reports--he can forget to pay his bills. That's what happened last year to poor Jayson Blair, the former New York Times novelist. Seems that Blair, 27, was so busy traveling (from one corner of his Brooklyn apartment to the other), that a pesky $3683.12 American Express bill went unpaid for many months. In fact, the credit card giant last year sued Blair in Brooklyn's Civil Court and obtained a judgment against him for the overdue balance and additional fees (for a grand total of $3853.36). On May 6, days after Blair resigned in disgrace from the Times, he finally paid his Amex debt in full, according to a source familiar with the August 2002 legal judgment. In the recent Times takeout on Blair, it was reported that he did not have a company credit card--the reasons for which were "unclear" --and had to pay work expenses with the credit card of Jim Roberts, the Times national editor. The paper's report noted that Blair had told a Times administrator his own credits cards were maxed out. Which was, of course, partially true. (3 pages)

Times brass sends mea culpa memo to staff.