Jayson Blair, whose fabrications triggered the worst ethics crisis in the history of the New York Times and cost two very senior editors their jobs, will be speaking later today at a journalism ethics conference.

From NPR.org: (seen first on Twitter)

The historic campus of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., has offered instruction in journalism for well over a century — but probably never quite like this.

On Friday, the twice-yearly Washington and Lee Journalism Ethics Institute will hear from its latest keynote speaker: Jayson Blair, the former New York Times reporter who triggered the greatest scandal in the newspaper's history.

"Getting Jayson Blair obviously was a departure," says Edward Wasserman, the Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee.

Indeed. The keynote address is typically reserved for people like Lowell Bergman or Toni Locy, journalists who withstood pressure from zealous prosecutors or corporate heavies.

This time, Wasserman says he found inspiration in a newspaper account of Blair's new career as a life coach for people who, like Blair, suffer from mental illness and substance abuse. ...

I asked other several prominent journalists what they thought of inviting Blair to the media ethics conference, which will draw leading news professionals as well as students.

Several reacted positively. "Hey, banks hire safecrackers and Internet firms hire hackers to help them with security, don't they?" Doyle McManus, the most recent past Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, asked in an e-mail. "If Mr. Blair's purpose is to tell editors, 'Here's how I got away with it; here's what to guard against,' then he could do a real service."

Read the whole thing. NPR also did an interview with Blair.

There's lots in my blog archive on Mr. Blair, but this offers good one-stop shopping: Jayson Blair five years later (posted May 10, 2008).