There?s hope for the next generation. Don?t worry about that.

Case in point: Jayson Blair, the disgraced former New York Times writer, spoke yesterday at Winston-Salem State University and got a fusillade of tough questions. Here?s a snippet:

In a question-and-answer session after his talk, Ebonee Russell, a senior at WSSU, asked Blair whether he was ashamed to accept $3,000 to speak at the school after making it more difficult for black journalists to succeed in the business.

Blair responded that he didn’t feel that he had “destroyed opportunities” for black journalists and that he turned down a lucrative ghost-writing project to go on tour and offer his story as a cautionary tale. He is donating $1,000 of his fee to the Urban Justice Center in New York.

Good question, shaky answer. It becomes increasingly obvious that Blair should have sought a position at CBS, where he would have had better long-term prospects. Meanwhile, a real news organization should hire Ms. Russell.