No scholarship in honor of Jayson Blair at UMD

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43151-2004Feb15.html

Good for my alma mater, UMD, for saying a big NO to Jayson Blair's publisher who wanted to set up a journalism scholarship at UMD. No. Just, no.

Jayson Blair's Money No Good at U-Md.

• The Jayson Blair Journalism Scholarship: What a concept.

Michael Viner, who published Blair's new book, "Burning Down My Master's House," told Editor & Publisher that the lying plagiarist -- booted from the New York Times last year -- would give a portion of his advance to charity, maybe setting up a scholarship at the University of Maryland, which he attended.

"It will be up to him what the amount will be," Viner said. "But it will be enough for more than one scholarship. He did not want to promote that and make it a promotional device, he just wanted to do it."

No thanks, says Tom Kunkel, dean of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

"Obviously we'd never take such ill-gotten money; no journalism school would ever be interested in profiting from such crimes against journalism. We didn't appreciate the suggestion, and we've made that position very clear to the publisher."