Over the weekend, the NYT caught up with history's most recent faker memoirists. (Have you heard? It's all the rage this month.)

Clifford Irving, who sold a fake tome about Howard R. Hughes that spawned the movie Hoax, is having his book released as a novel this month. Laura Albert, aka JT LeRoy, was in Paris attending a party when she was reached; she's feels for the newly outed hoaxers. Oprah deceiver James Frey is about to launch an eight-city book tour.

The next article we'd like to see in this series? Updates on fake reporters. Is Jayson Blair still resuscitating his reputation as a rally boy for mental health awareness? What cabin is Pulitzer Prize winning Janet Cooke hiding out in since she was outed as a fabricator for the Washington Post? And has Stephen Glass been admitted to the New York bar yet, and is he still doing that whole comedy scene in Los Angeles?

News Groper’s version of Jayson Blair is all about the First Amendment and the Shield Bill.

His logic is airtight:

If this reporter gets a wicked quote from General Petreaus revealing his new plan to kill every Iraqi and replace them with the peaceful Kuarupu tribe of the Amazon, and the reporter’s needling editor wants to engage in the most time-wasting and stupid practice of all time: fact checking, the reporter doesn’t have to.

Even if this asshole editor says: “This Shield bill only applies to external summonses. I’m your editor, you have to show me your notes. Look let’s not make this any more difficult than it has to be, I know this quote is clearly fabricated.”

Even then, the reporter doesn’t have to show his notes to the editor. Because the bill says so.

The real Jayson Blair would agree. He truly was a man of ahead of his time.

Today we learn that New York Times columnist David Carr had a drug problem, wrote a book about it, and is getting a $300,000 Simon & Schuster book deal for it. Not that it really seems like a huge chunk of change compared to the price of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, but, we guess it's a pretty good deal for a journalist.

Oh, and speaking of journalists, did you all know that the act of reporting was supposed to be non-fictional?

"We're thrilled to have a chance to publish a book from one of the finest non-fiction journalists of our time," David Rosenthal, publisher of industry giant Simon & Schuster said.

Carr was the editor of Washington City Paper, worked at the defunct Powerful Media and was a contributor to Atlantic Monthly when he was hired by Howell Raines as a media reporter at the New York Times.

Well, at least Jayson Blair continues to hold on to his "finest fiction journalists of our time" title.

Media Ink [Keith Kelly, New York Post]

Holida-ay … celebra-ate. It's the three year anniversary since crazy Jayson Blair was booted from the New York Times for plagiarizing and making up stories. Yay!

Yes, three years ago, 7,200 words were spent reporting on the 27-year-old reporter who had committed the ulitmate journalistic sin. And on that day, not only did Blair suffer, but Howell Raines and the entire Times staff did as well. As did Jack Shafer, since the Blair scandal resulted in the hiring of a public editor.

And could you imagine being the paper's spokesperson at the time?

Catherine Mathis, the Times' vice president of corporate communications and chief mouthpiece
in such moments, recalls working her cell phone almost non-stop while attending a Broadway show that Sunday.

Almost poetically, the production was "Long Day's Journey into Night," a bit too appropriate for the situation. "We just happened to have tickets to go that day," she said on Wednesday. "It has two intermissions. You can call a lot of reporters back in two intermissions."

So, let us get this straight. Cramming a thousand phone calls into two 20 minute breaks is defined as "working non-stop?" It really is no wonder that when the paper isn't making up stories about WMDs, they're just recycling leftover Styles stories from ten years ago.

The Jayson Blair Affair, Three Years On [Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher]

Not much Jayson Blair. And not a whole lot of Judith Miller, either. With just two chapters devoted to his ousting at the New York Times, we figured former exec editor Howell Raines' upcoming memoir The One That Got Away (released May 2) would be just another snoozer about fly fishing. And, generally, that's pretty accurate. Except when he does talk about Jayson Blair.

Raines offers a couple of amusing anecdotes involving family members during this difficult period. He quotes his son Ben, the Mobile Register reporter, asking over the phone: “Dad, is Jayson Blair a dwarf?” Raines says he responded, “Jayson is very short, but he’s not a dwarf, at least not a physical dwarf.”

He also recalls the advice of his wife Krystyna before the fabled showdown meeting with Times staffers in a New York theater: “Remember, your job for the next two hours is to resist every impulse to tell them to go fuck themselves.”

Some marry for love, others marry for career advice.

Preview of New Howell Raines Book: Blair Takes Back Seat [Greg Mitchell, E&P]

If a publisher were paying a writer $900,000 to publish a book based on a 79-page proposal, one would assume that the proposal would reflect the outcome of the final book.

Unless that person is Emily Davies, the proposed author of How to Wear Black: Adventures on Fashion’s Front Line, who assumed that a compilation of stuff a bunch of other people wrote would suffice. (Seriously, do publishers even have people who's purpose it is to make sure book proposals aren't chock full o' lies?)

Oh, the trials and tribulations of the "memoir" category. It does get oh so tricky. So tricky, in fact that instead of writing her proposal on her own experiences as a fashion reporter for the London Times, journalist turned James Frey wannabe thought that lifting the experiences of Monique P. Yazigi, who penned the 1998 New York Times piece, “The Glamour Girl’s Guide to Life," was no big deal.

Davies claimed, in effect, that it was easier for her to give prospective publishers the flavor of her memoir by appropriating other writers’ words than by relying on her own memories.

Chapter 12, which is based on meeting Alexandra Kotur, is based entirely on another writer's memories — a writer who happens to currently be shopping her own book, based on those memories and experiences.

Granted, the sign of a great writer may very well be his or her ability to take on and explore lives that are far removed from their own. This is what we call "fiction." Example: Memoirs of Geisha. Written by a white guy. Fiction.

Come on, if you're going to pass off someone else's life as your own, at least pick one which can't be found through a simple Nexis search. It's like a beat reporter from Newsday going "hey, I just got a $2 million advance to write a memoir based on my life as a war reporter. Yeah, well, the proposal took a lot of stuff from Jayson Blair's columns, but I'm not going to use them in the actual book."

Borrowed Memories [Jeff Bercovici, WWD]

**Ed Note: Thank you to Rachel Sklar for pointing out our disappointing comprehension of Barbara Streisand lyrics. Our gay/Jewish other half is currently on the other side of the world.

• Congrats, Heather Mills McCartney. With J. Crew agreeing to ban fur from its clothing racks, you've managed to make a name for yourself aside from "Paul McCartney's wife." [Lowdown]

• Nicole Richie was the object of Naomi Campbell's affection at Bungalow 8 the other night, when the Tyra Banks foe put three feet of space between them before she screamed how much she hated the reality star. Though we've got to agree with Naomi: Bitches should get slapped for hanging out with Nicky Hilton. [Lowdown]

• Despite rumors that Fox was going to move American Idol to Wednesday and Thursdays to challenge the powerhouse-that-isn't on NBC, it's going to keep the off-pitch fest on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. No need to confuse the tweens. [NYDN]

• If Jayson Blair had his way, Judy Miller would've rocked the Times. Though in his drunken state, he put it much more eloquently. [Page Six]

• Wait, fading Christian rockers get drunk, go on TV and make asses out of themselves? [Lowdown]

• Britney Spears has turned to a psychic to pull her through her marriage woes, since having her little sister blog about it hasn't helped much. [The Scoop]

• If it wasn't Us Weekly's Alyssa Shelasky whose canoodling with Nick Lachey ruined his marriage with Jessica Simpson, it must be another brunette. Right? Right? [TMZ]

• Oprah: Denied at Hermes, denied at the country club. [Page Six]

• Lovely. Tori Spelling is procreating. [PR Newswire]

• American Media's Star and Celebrity Living are on David Pecker's shit list after completely missing Nick Lachey and Jessica's Simpson's split scoop, which went to Us Weekly. While Star's "Jessica finally pregnant!" and Celebrity Living's "New house and a baby!" issues hit newsstands, father Joe was issuing the separation announcement. [Page Six]

• Desperate Housewives dismissal Page Kennedy claims he wasn't ousted from the ABC set for exposing himself, but Usher's rep Tamar Juda might beg to differ. [R&M]

• Spotting Jayson Blair outside the New York Times building is right up there with spotting Lauren Weisberger outside 4 Times Square. [R&M]

• We've devoted so much ink to the breakup of Kathy Griffin and Matt Moline that we can barely muster tears of joy upon hearing the D-list duo are still a pair. Even though they've filed for the divorce, the red carpet critic and her "soul mate" are still sleeping and mugging for the camera together. [PerezHilton]

• If Pete Doherty can't have Kate Moss, at the very least he can have her rehab clinic. [Page Six]

• Sienna Miller has finally figured out how to keep an eye on beau Jude Law: have him do a cameo in her new movie Factory Girl. [Page Six]

• Paris Hilton might still be ignoring Nicole Richie, but that's not keeping her, Stavros Niarchos, Nicky Hilton and Kevin Connelly from hitting up Stereo, where Richie's fiance DJ AM was spinning. [PerezHilton]

• Lindsay Lohan's latest? Johnny Knoxville. [Lowdown]

• Looks like The Firm chief Jeff Kwatinetz blew his chance at getting a J. Lo fragrance basket for Christmas. The uber agent stood up the diva at scheduled meetings not once, but twice. [Page Six]

• Joanne Lipman may be the celebrated ex-Wall Street Journal talent now heading up Conde Nast's business magazine group, but that doesn't mean she's entitled to her own desk just yet. [WWD]

• Author Julie Chrystyn thought she'd give disgraced ex-New York Timeser Jayson Blair a break by letting him work on her thriller at Phoenix Books. That was before he flipped out, insisted on reviewing her contract, protecting her and meeting in Texas — she declined and, uh, he hasn't been heard from since. [Cindy Adam]

• Despite snowballing rumors that she's collecting $50,000 fees for speaking engagements that're booked through 2007, Judith Miller's mouthpieces at the New York Times say she's god "few, if any, on the calendar at this point." What, the weekly calendar? [Page Six]

• The Wall Street Journal is downsizing, but not in the New York Times kind of way (at least not this week). Owner Dow Jones wants to physically shrink the paper from a width of 60 inches to 48 inches by 2007 as part of a larger redesign project with hopes of saving $18 million per year, or $1.5 million per inch. [WSJ]

• Because too few people are buying it, uh, for the articles, Playboy finds itself slashing its rate base by 4.7 percent to 3 million readers. Damn slagging newsstand sales. [SmartMoney.com]

• Meanwhile, if you haven't yet figured how to download porn to your Razr, don't fret: Penthouse's mobile phone efforts are in the works. Forget about Verizon's streaming clips of Pamela Anderson's Stacked and look forward to Pets in Paradise. [Business 2.0]