BROOKE GLADSTONE: "When a reputable newspaper lies, it poisons the community; every newspaper story becomes suspect," declared a New York Times editorial. "Great publications magnify the voice of any single writer. Thus, when their editors or publishers want or need to know a source for what they print, they have to know it and be able to assure the community or the courts that they do. Where this is not now the rule, let this sad affair at least have the good effect of making it the rule." That editorial was published on April 17, 1981 about the transgressions of a Washington Post reporter named Janet Cooke. Cooke was 26, talented and black -- a big plus in a mostly white newsroom in a mostly black city. She was rapidly promoted. She wrote a powerful piece about drug abuse in D.C. centered on an 8 year old heroin addict named Jimmy. She won the Pulitzer Prize. Then it became apparent that she'd invented her star character. She was in many ways like Jayson Blair

MICHAEL GETLER: These were both attractive people. I mean they were smart, they were articulate; editors get caught up with them and they perhaps give them too long a leash to operate in ways that perhaps some other reporters don't get to operate.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Getler is a former Post reporter and editor; now its ombudsman. He says that after the Cooke debacle, the paper changed.

MICHAEL GETLER: One of the things that did happen at the post is that the star system was diminished. There was also I think an immediate impact on the culture of the newsroom. It was clear that editors had to inquire more frequently about the sources of stories -- that communications generally had to be improved throughout the newsroom --that had to be a much more open process so that doubts by reporters or junior editors about particular stories could surface.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Back then the post was run by Ben Bradlee, a flamboyant, autocratic, risk-taking editor like the Times' Howell Raines. The newsroom culture was similar and their scandals were similar, but not entirely the same.

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: The kind of thing that Jayson Blair did is very different from what Janet Cooke did.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Hendrik Hertzberg is a staff writer for the New Yorker.

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: No, hers was a great big invention. Janet Cooke's was more like a big bank robbery, and Jayson Blair's was more like gradual embezzlement.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So the editors responsible for Cooke failed to catch her in her one big lie. But the Times' top editors had plenty of chances to catch the myriad distortions of Jayson Blair. One prominent reason they didn't? Blair's victims never called to complain! Some critics say that's because they had no one to complain to.

RECORDED MESSAGE: Thank you for calling the Reader Comment Line at the New York Times. Your message will reach a responsible editor very promptly. If you're calling as an individual about a correction or with a coverage question we can answer, we will try to reply.

LOU GELFAND: I think readers want to have someone -- a name -- that they can call and ask for and talk to instead of just leaving a message. It's very impersonal, and I think it's arrogant.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Lou Gelfand is the longest-running ombudsman in American journalism, serving that role for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for the last 22 years. The ombudsman is the person to complain to -- an independent observer --neither apologist nor scold. But he takes the complaints and unpacks them, usually in a column, and responds to hundreds of readers a week.

LOU GELFAND: I think they can enhance the newspaper's credibility by taking an issue and discussing it thoroughly and if the ombudsman feels that the paper blew it - was wrong - to say so.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Washington Post had an ombudsman back in 1981, but no ombudsman could have prevented the Cooke debacle. But what about Jayson Blair? Daniel Okrent is the Time's ombudsman, hired a year ago.

DANIEL OKRENT: I think that they're so hypersensitized to this and they've created new systems and new jobs and internal jobs to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. They don't need me to do that, frankly.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Maybe that'll be a lasting legacy of Jayson Blair -- better communication among high and low-level editors -- and better checking up on facts, starting with a reporter's resume straight through to his confidential sources. But as the Times noted in its editorial in 1981, that should have been the lasting legacy of Janet Cooke. I put it to the Post Ombudsman Michael Getler.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Did Janet Cooke have any lasting impact on the profession? Cause it sure doesn't seem like it.

MICHAEL GETLER: Well, it's like the Vietnam War. You know, you get a new generation of reporters who don't even know about it or hadn't heard about it or weren't aware of the impact of it. But I think it did put in place a general culture which guards against that happening again.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So you think maybe you need a Janet Cooke or a Jayson Blair in every generation.

MICHAEL GETLER: Well, hopefully not. I mean hopefully you, you don't need that, but it sure provides a stimulus. [MUSIC]