--NY Times photographer leaves paper amid controversy over allegations he staged newsphoto --LA Times photographer fired over altered photo --CNN admits years after the fact they suppressed certain stories from Iraq because they feared Iraqi government retaliation --Reporters busted trying to bring 'war souvenirs' from Iraq into U.S. --Pulitzer prize winning reporter Peter Arnett fired by MSNBC after he gives interview to Iraqi government TV --Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera (and others) kicked out of Iraq by military after revealing too much info about U.S. troop movements --Two Salt Lake City Tribune reporters fired after admitting they were paid $20,000 by the National Enquirer for info on the Elizabeth Smart case --San Antonio Express editor complains after NY Times prints story that has portions that are similar to a story that ran in the Express .....

When it comes to correcting itself, the Times is a two-tiered institution. The correction desk at the paper is legendary for its thoroughness. Anyone who takes a look at its daily work?the paper's Page A2 corrections box?cannot avoid the conclusion that the paper of record is serious about its job. The box picks apart every sentence of the erring reporter's work and pointedly restates the mistakes?all of which makes for interesting reading. Compared with the Post, says Slate magazine Editor At Large Jack Shafer, "The New York Times is more responsive about being accountable about errors of fact." (Shafer is a former editor of the City Paper.)

At a less perspicacious publication, Blair might not have acquired such a grotesque corrections archive.

Yet Blair's sniper coverage appears to hit the paper's mea culpa weak spot: 'fessing up to mistakes in coverage trends. Whether it's correspondent Walter Duranty's brushing off the famines that killed millions in the Soviet Union in the '30s or the late-'90s stories that overstated the U.S. espionage case against scientist Wen Ho Lee, the Times resists acknowledging that its coverage ever goes off track......

No probe, however, will excuse the full-system breakdown that permitted Blair to tarnish American journalism. Where were the line editors with the questions about the alleged interrogation videotape? Didn't anyone ask how this kid parachuted into Maryland and suddenly corralled a breathtaking scoop? "There's no system that I know of that can protect you from a reporter or editor who sets out to make up untrue things and get them into the paper," says Raines.