Should The Times Be Sued For Blair?

The Village Voice has a short blurb (see the third item down) in which a professor discusses the possibility of suing the New York Times for "journalistic malpractice" over the Jayson Blair incidents.

Now as bad as the accusations in the Blair case are (that the Times continued to publish his stories, even after they knew they were false) I don't see a need for the instigation of litigation here.

The Times screwed up, bad. And they deserve a punishment for having done so.

That punishment has been meted out by our society. The Times has lost a huge chunk of respectability and perceived integrity. For a self-respecting journalist, even those at the Times, losing those two intangibles is a fate worse than virtually any monetary penalty that could be imposed.

For without respect or integrity, a journalist is nothing. To last in their chosen field, they must have both. Whether the Times reporters like it or not, they've lost a measure of both. That is the punishment for the Blair episodes.

An unemployed journalist with respect and integrity will soon find employment in the journalistic field. A rich shyster like Blair will end up at the National Enquirer or the World Weekly News before he ever works at someplace like the Times of Podunk again.

Besides which, how do these lawyers intend to quantify the damage done by Jayson's joshes? Ok, so Blair did wrong - we'll assume he committed malpractice for a moment. Where is the harm? Where is the loss? If a doctor commits malpractice there are physical consequences, which can be quantified. If a CPA commits malpractice there are financial consequences, which can be quantified. Where is the quantifiable harm caused by Blair's actions?

I have no great love for the Times, but there is no justification for manufacturing a new legal peril to rectify a self-correcting and non-harming problem. This sounds to me like some lawyer angling for massive class-action fees.