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| 5/25 |
| 2004/3/19 [Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:12755 Activity:high |
3/19 Journalistic fraud that makes Jason Blair look honest.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-03-18-2004-03-18_kelleymain_x.htm
\_ He's a conservative, so it doesn't matter. It is only when
the liberal media fakes stories that it is big news.
\_ WTF? String this guy up. And any reporter who makes things up.
You're an idiot if you think people en masse ignore fabrications
because of ideology. - a conservative
\_ Let's see if this becomes a big story, like the Jason
Blair thing. I predict that it will not.
\_ Um, I know it will not. However, that's because a) it was
the NY F'ing Times, considered the standard for
journalistic accuracy, and b) it was the first big story
about journalistic fraud--first is always biggest.
\_ reporters lie all the time, to promote their career, ego, etc.
Journalists are scumbags just like lawyers.
\_ Is he Jewish? http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-03-19-jerusalem_x.htm
\_ What difference does it make?
\_ Well it might affect what he was thinking, like was he just
cynically latching onto any sensationalism or did he have
some other motivations. |
| 5/25 |
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| www.usatoday.com/news/2004-03-18-2004-03-18_kelleymain_x.htm Kelley, 43, resigned from the newspaper in January after he admitted conspiring with a translator to mislead editors overseeing an inquiry into his work. At the time, newspaper editors said they could not determine whether Kelley had embellished or fabricated stories. After Kelley quit, a new investigation began, spurred by fears that Kelley might have plagiarized. A team of five reporters and an editor, monitored by a three-member panel of former editors from outside the newspaper, reviewed more than 720 stories Kelley wrote from 1993 through 2003. A story was considered fabricated if expense reports, phone records, official documents or witnesses clearly contradicted all or parts of what was published, and if Kelleys explanations failed to reconcile those contradictions. The three former editors spent about 20 hours interviewing Kelley. Throughout those interviews, Kelley insisted he had done nothing wrong and urged a quick resolution to the newspapers investigation. Confronted Thursday with the newspapers findings, Kelley spent 2 1/2 hours again denying wrongdoing. But an extensive examination of about 100 of the 720 stories uncovered evidence that found Kelleys journalistic sins were sweeping and substantial. The evidence strongly contradicted Kelleys published accounts that he spent a night with Egyptian terrorists in 1997; In addition: Significant parts of one of Kelleys most gripping stories, an eyewitness account of a suicide bombing that helped make him a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist, are untrue. Kelleys explanations of how he reported stories from Egypt, Russia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Israel, Cuba and Pakistan were contradicted by hotel, phone or other records or sources he said would confirm them. 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. In speeches to groups such as the Evangelical Press Association, Kelley talked of events that never occurred. Kelleys conduct represents a sad and shameful betrayal of public trust, former newspaper editors Bill Hilliard, Bill Kovach and John Seigenthaler said in a statement. The three editors said their analysis of how these abuses occurred will conclude in the near future. Reporters Michael Hiestand, Kevin McCoy, Blake Morrison, Rita Rubin and Julie Schmit investigated Kelleys work. Before he resigned in January, Kelley spent his entire 21-year career at USA TODAY. Now, Editor Karen Jurgensen said the newspaper will withdraw all prize entries it made on Kelleys behalf. The newspaper also will flag stories of concern in its online archive. As an institution, we failed our readers by not recognizing Jack Kelleys problems. In the future, we will make certain that an environment is created in which abuses will never again occur. |
| www.usatoday.com/news/2004-03-19-jerusalem_x.htm He wrote in his story: 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. In a first draft that Kelley submitted for publication, he wrote that some of the heads rolled with their eyes still blinking. How Kelley by his own account 90 feet away and with his back to the pizzeria and having first been thrown to his knees by the blast could have turned and seen the blinking eyes of victims is unclear. Regardless, no adult victims were decapitated, say Israels National Police spokesman Gil Kleiman and Zaka Rescue and Recovery, religious Jews who collect the bodies and body parts of terror victims. Kelley also wrote and talked about another man who lost his legs and died in front of Kelley moments later. By Kelleys count, four men not counting the bomber died in the blast. Kelley wrote that he saw the suicide bomber, but the man he described could not have been the bomber. Kelley wrote that he saw a young man, wearing a white T-shirt and dark sport jacket. A black pouch, similar to a small camera case, was attached to his waist. In a television interview on CNN five days later, Kelley said, The suicide bomber was right in front of me. But police records in Israel show the bomber, Izzadin Masri, carried the bomb in a guitar, not a camera case. In his story, Kelley also wrote that a policeman pointed to what he said was the top of the head of the suicide bomber, which was lying on the floor. Youve killed us all, you bastard, the officer said, pointing to the head. During his CNN interview, Kelley explained that he knew he had bumped into the bomber because there was the gentlemans head laying on the floor, and I could recognize him as the gentleman who I had saw But Kleiman says the bombers head and upper body flew up and got stuck in a vent above the pizzerias ovens. Kleiman allowed a USA TODAY reporter to review pictures of the remains of the bomber. The bombers head remained with his torso, and his nose and mouth were intact and clearly distinguishable, contrary to what Kelley wrote he saw. There is no record of the rabbi Kelley wrote found the hand of a little girl splattered against a white Subaru parked outside the restaurant. Kelley quoted Rabbi Moshe Aaron in the story as saying, She was probably 5 or 6, the same age as my daughter. But Zaka spokesman Zelig Feiner in Jerusalem has no record of a rabbi named Moshe Aaron who helped collect body parts that day. Kelley was likely not with an Israeli intelligence officer, as he wrote. The newspaper talked with two reporters one American, one Israeli who put Kelley on the scene within minutes of the blast. But when the newspaper asked Kelley for the name of the person he wrote he was with when the explosion occurred, he suggested a reporter call a man he said was code-named David. Kelley said he and David were about to eat lunch that day when the explosion occurred. Interviewed Thursday in Jerusalem, the man told a USA TODAY reporter that he is not a member of the Israeli security force Shin Bet, as Kelley continued to insist Thursday. The man would not answer other questions, including whether he was with Kelley at the bombing. |