Journalism scandals

Journalistic scandals includes practices such as plagiarism, fabrication of quotes, facts, or other report details, staging or altering the event being putatively recorded, or anything else that may call the integrity and truthfulness of a piece of journalisminto question. As their reputations for accuracy and truthfulness are arguably the most important assets of mass mediaoutlets, many strictly enforce codes of journalistic ethicsand carefully screen their reports for factual accuracy, publishing corrections even for minor errors soon after a story appears. When a case of journalistic fraud is discovered (especially at a prestigious media outlet), it is widely reported upon.

Cases of journalistic fraud

Janet Cooke (1980-1981)

Janet Cookewas a reporter for the Washington Postduring the early 1980s. In 1980her story, "Jimmy's World", about an 8 year old heroin addict, sparked a frenzied 17-day scouring of Washington, D.C.at the behest of then-Mayor Marion Barry, in search of child addicts: none was found. Nevertheless, the article won a 1981 Pulitzer Prizefor journalism. Shortly afterward, Cooke confessed that "Jimmy" was a fabrication, claiming that he was a composite of several child addicts, and returned the prize. She also admitted to having padded her resume and resigned from the Post.

NBC Dateline (1992)

In a November 1992segment on its Dateline news program called "Waiting to Explode", NBCshowed a General Motorstruck exploding after a low-speed side collision with another car. The explosion, though, was actually generated by hidden remote-controlled incendiary devices. GM sued and eventually won a settlement.

Bob Wisehart (Mid 1990's)

In the mid 1990's Bob Wisehart, a TV critic for the Sacramento Beewas caught plagiarizing by his editors and resigned.

Stephen Glass (1998)

Stephen Glasswas a reporter and associate editor for The New Republicmagazine during the late 1990s. On May 8, 1998, Forbes Magazinepresented The New Republic with evidence that Glass completely fabricated the story "Hack Heaven", a piece about a 15-year-old computer hackerwho breaks into a large company's computer system and is then offered a job by the company. Glass was fired, and an internal investigation determined that 27 of 41 articles he had written for the magazine contained fabricated material. His story was dramatized in the 2003film, Shattered Glass.

• Salon.com: Hacker heaven, editors' hell

Patricia Smith (1998)

Shortly after the Glass affair, award-winning reporter Patricia Smith resigned from the Boston Globe. Smith, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist that year, admitted to fabricating quotations.

• CNN: Boston Globe columnist resigns, accused of fabrications
• Salon.com: Confabulation crisis

Mike Barnicle (1998)

Mike Barniclewas a long-time journalist for the Boston Globewho was removed from his position at about the same time as colleague Patricia Smith. Barnicle was accused of violating several rules of reporting, but was removed from the Globe when it was discovered he fabricated quotes from parents of a sick child. Source: Boston Globe, October 5, 1998, Op-Ed Page

• Salon.com: repeat offender
• Boston Globe: Barnicle signs on as Herald columnist
• Boston Herald: We got Mike!: Barnicle to join Herald

CNN NewsStand (1998) - Operation Tailwind

On the June 7 edition of NewsStand, CNN reported that the US used nerve gas in Laos to kill American defectors during the Vietnam War. It retracted this statement on July 2.

• CNN: CNN retracts Tailwind coverage

Rigoberta Menchú (1999)

In 1983, Guatemalanactivist Rigoberta Menchúpublished an account of her country's bloody civil war called I, Rigoberta Menchú. In 1992she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Several years later anthropologist David Stollconducted a series of interviews with Menchú's former acquaintances for a follow-up book. During this time he discovered that much of her account was fabricated. Specifically, Menchú was not self-taught (she received a middle-school education) and the land dispute in which her father was killed was with family members, not the government.

• Salon.com: Rigoberta Menchú meets the press
• Salon.com: I, Rigoberta Menchú, liar

Houston Chronicle (2002)

In late 2002 the Houston Chronicleaccidentally posted an internal executive memorandum to its website. The memo contained materials that appeared to outline a plan for intentionally slanted reporting that promoted a pending bond referendumin the Houston, Texasmetropolitan region. The memorandum was widely circulated and criticized in other Houston print and electronic media outlets; however the paper quietly removed it from their website. When questioned about the memo, Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen replied that the memo was a "story pitch" and refused to apologize for it. Other than Cohen's remarks the paper made no comment. [1](see article on Houston Chronicle Light Rail Controversy).

James Forlong (2003)

In Aprilof 2003the Sky NewsNetwork carried a report from James Forlongaboard the Britishnuclear submarineHMS Splendidpurportedly showing a live firing of a cruise missile, at sea in the Persian Gulf, during the Iraq war. The report included scenes of the crew members giving instructions related to the launch of the missile and included a sequence in which a crew member pressed a large red button marked with the word "FIRE" and accompanied by a sequence of a missile breaking the surface of the water and launching into the air. The report was a fabrication, with the crew acting along for the benefit of the cameras. The Sky News team did not accompany the submarine when it left port and the scenes were actually recorded whilst the vessel was docked. The shot of the missile breaking the surface has been obtained from stock footage.

The faked report was revealed because a BBCfilm crew did accompany the vessel to sea. The BBC crew filmed a real cruise missile launch for the BBC TV series Fighting the War. The BBC footage showed how, with modern computerised launching systems, a missile is not launched by pressing a red button but is actually launched with a left mouse click. The BBC passed the information onto The Guardian newspaper who broke the story on July 18, 2003.

James Forlong was suspended from Sky News pending an investigation [2]. In October of 2003, he was found dead by his wife after committing suicide by hanging. In December, Sky News were fined £50,000 by the Independent Television Commissionfor breaching accuracy regulations.

• Sky fined £50,000 over war report(BBC News - December 16, 2003)

Jayson Blair (2003)

In early May 2003, New York Times reporter Jayson Blairresigned after being confronted with evidence of fabricating quotes and details in at least 36 articles. On June 5, 2003, Times executive editor Howell Rainesand managing editor Gerald Boyd resigned as a result of this scandal.

Jack Kelley (2004)

In early 2004, an anonymous letter to editors of USA Today caused an internal investigation of one of its star reporters, Jack Kelley. The investigation found that Kelley had been fabricating stories or parts of stories since at least 1991. Several editors at the paper resigned due to this scandal.

• The problems of Jack Kelley and USA TODAY(USA Today - 4/22/2004)

Stephen Dunphy (2004)

Stephen Dunphy was a business columnist for the Seattle Timeswith over 35 years of experience in the journalism world. He was caught plagiarizing by his editors in a few of his previous stories and was subsequently fired.

Fake "GI Rape" Photographs (2004)

In Mayof 2004, the Boston Globepublished photographs it alleged were of United Statessoldiers abusing and raping women in Iraq. Shortly thereafter, these photographs were stated to be commercially-produced pornography that were originally published on a web site named "Sex in War". At the time, other news sources claimed to have already exposed the photographs as fake at least a week before the Bostonnewspaper published them.

Dan Rather (2004)

During the 2004 US presidential campaign, Dan Ratherwas responsible for using possibly forgeddocuments during a report on George W. Bush's Vietnam era service record. Unlike most other scandals listed on this page, this was an error of gullibility on the part of the perpetrator, and there is no evidence that Mr. Rather intended to mislead the public. There is widespread speculation on the Internet and elsewhere that Karl Rovewas responsible for planting the forged documents with CBS. Dubbed "Rathergate" and "Memogate" by the Internet blogcommunity, the reason for Rather's choice to stick by the Killian documentsafter widely being debated as forgeries was investigated. After investigation it is still unknown whether the documents were known or believed to be forged prior to 60 Minutesrunning the segment. The aftermath of the independent investigation's report released on January 10, 2005led to the firing of the producer of the original story, Mary Mapes. Three others, Josh Howard, executive producer of 60 Minutes Wednesday; his top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice president Betsy West, were asked to resign.

Barry Schweid (2005)

On April 11, 2005, the Associated Pressreported that John Bolton, nominee for ambassador of the United Statesto the United Nationshad said "that the world body had 'gone off track' at times but that he was committed to its mission". This article was filed more than an hour before the beginning of the hearing session at which Mr. Bolton allegedly made these remarks.

Barbara Stewart (2005)

In the spring of 2005, the Boston Globeran a story describing the events of a seal hunt near Halifax, Nova Scotiathat took place on April 12, 2005. The article described the specific number of boats involved in the hunt and graphically described the killing of seals and the protests that accompanied it. The reality is that weather had delayed the hunt, which had not even begun by April 13, the day the story had been filed, and was rescheduled to start, at the earliest, on April 15, three days after Ms. Stewart (who had worked for the New York Timesfor a decade previous) "described" the events of said hunt. As there was no hunt to describe, the story was obviously fabricated. As of yet, Ms. Stewart has not commented on filing this story describing events that never occurred.

Bush administration journalism scandals (2005)

• Bush administration payment of columnists- The Bush White House payment of public funds to right-wingmedia commentators by several U.S. executive departmentsunder Cabinetofficials to promote various policies of U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bush's administration. Thousands of dollarswere paid to at least three commentators to promote Bush administration policies. This includes Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, Michael McManus.
• Jeff Gannonaka James Dale Guckert, a so-called "patsy" for the Bush Administration.

Jim Van Vliet (2005)

Jim Van Vliet a sports writer for the Sacremento Bee was fired when his editors learned that he had he?d written about a Giants game after watching it on TV while quoting players as if he?d actually personally interviewed them in the locker room afterwards; the fabricated quotes lost him his job.

Tim Ryan (2006)

Tim Ryan was a 21 year veteran writer with the Honolulu Star Bulletin. Entertainment columnist Tim Ryan was fired on January 14th, 2006 for plagiarising a number of stories during his time at the Star-Bulletin. In a statement on the paper's official website, editor Frank Bridgewater said, "The stories contained phrases or sentences that appeared elsewhere before being included, un-attributed, in stories that ran in the Star-Bulletin. The stories did not include inaccurate information or any fabrications." (full statement) Similarities between Ryan's December 22 review of the History Channeldocumentary"Secrets of the Black Box: Aloha Flight 243" were first noted on the wikipedia signpost[3]. Although Bridgewater did not reference wikipediain his official statement, the article itself was corrected by the Star-Bulletin on December 24th. The correction reads: "A portion of a review of the television show "Secrets of the Black Box: Aloha Flight 243" was taken verbatim from the Web site reference.com. The material was originally published in the online encyclopedia wikipedia.com. The article, on Page D6 Thursday, failed to attribute the information to either source." [4]A Wikipedia editor brought his complaint to the paper and that eventually led to the writer dismissal.

See also

• Propaganda model
• Scandal

External links

• Washington Post: N.Y. Times Uncovers Dozens Of Faked Stories by Reporter
• New York Times: Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception
• New York Times: Executive Editor of The Times and Top Deputy Step Down
• Operation Pheonix testimonies

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism+scandals Wikipedia article Journalism scandals.