Philip Dixon, the chairman of the Journalism Department at Howard University and former managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and I were having a conversation recently about Jack Kelley, the USA Today’s White version of Jayson Blair.

Do you think they pushed him along too quickly because he was White? Was he a White male old boy network hire? Did his White bosses put him on the fast track because he was White? Did he have a White mentor? And would a Black reporter other than Jayson Blair be kept on staff that long after making so many errors? Does this reflect on all White reporters? Will they be looked at differently now?

Dixon and I laughed as we peppered each other with these and similar questions, largely because they were a variation of the ridiculous ones being asked earlier about Blair, the New York Times’ serial liar. Dixon and I agreed that Kelley, who resigned under pressure in January, was worse than Blair because of the steps he took to cover up his plagiarism.

And there was plenty to cover up.

A special team of USA Today reporters, aided by three well respected outside editors, reviewed more than 700 of Kelley’s stories written over the past decade. The paper reported on March 19: “… an extensive examination of about 100 of the 720 stories uncovered evidence that found Kelley’s journalistic sins were sweeping and substantial.”

The story that almost won a Pulitzer Prize three years ago was about a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizza parlor. Kelley filed a story that said, “Three men, who had been eating pizza inside, were catapulted out of the chairs they had been sitting on. When they hit the ground, their heads separated from their bodies and rolled down the street.” He claimed the heads rolled “with their eyes still blinking.”

Editors deleted the “eyes still blinking” part of the story. They should have pulled the entire article. By his own account, Kelley was 90 feet away and was thrown to the ground, with his back to the pizzeria. Unless he had eyes in the back of his head, Kelley could not have witnessed what asserted that he had seen.

Kelly also claimed that to have met the bomber just minutes before the explosion. In an interview with CNN, he said, “there was [the] gentleman’s head laying on the floor, and I could recognize him as the gentleman who I had saw…”

USA Today reporters investigating Kelley’s work learned from Israel’s national police that the bomber’s head and upper torso hit the ceiling and got stuck in an oven vent during the explosion. Therefore, Kelley could not have possibly seen it on the floor.

His sins didn’t stop there.

The team of investigators found, “Kelley wrote scripts to help at least three people mislead USA Today reporters trying to verify his work, documents retrieved from his company-owned laptop computer show. Two of the people are translators Kelley paid for services months or years before. Another is a Jerusalem businessman, portrayed by Kelley as an undercover Israeli agent.”

Even Jayson Blair didn’t go that far.

Speaking of Blair, he continues to prove that he is a shameless liar. Not only did his behavior prompt the resignation of Gerald M. Boyd, the New York Times first Black managing editor, he even told a malicious lie about Boyd’s mother.

In his book, he wrote that Boyd’s mother “died following a long struggle with drugs.” However, Boyd disclosed in his syndicated column, “Odessa Thomas Boyd, my mother, was 29 years old when she died, after a lifetime battle with sickle cell anemia.”

He continued, “My mother's life was one of making the best of an awful situation, which she did with courage and without complaint. It is unconscionable that a journalist would write something so hurtful. The truth is that my mother did not drink or smoke, and she certainly never used drugs.”

Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would want to read or listen to what Jayson Blair has to say about anything unless they were interested in fiction. Even then, they could find better selections. Yet, this admitted liar can get a book contract, be interviewed on network TV newsmagazine shows and be welcomed at book signings across the country.

If USA Today really wants to imitate The New York Times, the top two editors will resign. And Kelley, taking a cue from Blair’s lead, will no doubt be offered a book contract to write more lies.