Ex-New York Times reporter Jayson Blair has agreed to write a memoir about his life… Los Angeles-based New Millennium Press has agreed to publish the book, to be called “Burning Down My Master’s House: My Life and the New York Times,” sources said. | A contract in the six-figure range could be signed as early as today for a book expected to hit newsstands in spring 2004. —Keith J. Kelly — A Blair Rewrite (NY Post)

Jayson Blair is the reporter whose fabricated stories caused a scandal and a personnel shakedown at the [now not quite so] esteemed New York Times. Was it P.T. Barnum who said that nobody went broke underestimating the taste of the American public? The reporter notes, “The move to give Blair a lucrative six-figure deal is sure to rankle some journalistic purists.” Consider me rankled.

Thanks for the tip, Mike (who knows “sick” when he sees it).