Blair J. Parker, a sports reporter at the News Leader in Staunton, Virginia, was fired on Tuesday after an internal investigation revealed she "fabricated at least four stories and plagiarized from other stories on the Internet."
Parker was suspended last week after a story she wrote was revealed to have been made up of parts plagiarized from at least five different sources. One top of that, "Only one source was clearly real and correctly identified, and he disputes the quote attributed to him."
This could be a record for the number of plagiarized sources contained in one article. A column from the paper's executive editor describes how that then led to a larger investigation:
Following that first revelation, we began to dig deeper into Parker’s work. On Friday, Oct. 19, we realized that a community profile she had written — and which had been prepared for Friday publication before Thursday’s revelations — also was suspect. The story profiled Andrew Koch and identified him as a University of Virginia student and a Cavaliers fan. A photo was included. At 8:52 a.m. someone who identified himself as Andrew Koch came onto our newspaper forums and said that while his name and photo were used on the profile, he was not a University of Virginia student, a Cavalier’s fan and he had not vacationed in Cancun. He said that despite the use of his name and image, he was not the subject of the article. He said the photo was identical to one on a website at James Madison University, where he works. We could not locate a student Andrew Koch at U.Va. and on Saturday (Oct. 20) ran a correction stating that the profile was false.
The editor then details four more incidents of plagiarism and/or fabrication. Parker has owned up to her transgressions. "When asked about the problems in the
deer-hunting story on Thursday, Parker told Publisher Roger Watson and
me that she took full responsibility for her actions," writes David Frtiz. "On Tuesday, she
admitted the other fabrications and offered no explanation."
He concludes with an apology:
So I apologize to you for the actions of our reporter. Our goal from the first sign of wrongdoing was to quickly and transparently understand the scope of the problem and to take firm action. It’s our responsibility to our readers. I also apologize that we didn’t figure it out sooner.
Here are two corrections published by the paper before it fired Parker:
The reporting for a local profile on Page A4 Friday cannot be verified. The photo that ran with it is of an Andrew Koch, but that Andrew Koch was not interviewed for the piece. Because of this, we retract the entire profile. The work of Blair J. Parker, the reporter who prepared the profile, is under review by The News Leader. That section of A4 was prepared early on Thursday, before questions were raised about her other work. More information will be released once the investigation is complete. Link
A Thursday B1 story about the fall deer and trout seasons by Blair J. Parker was plagiarized from several sources.
We have confirmed that large portions of the story came from other sources and that facts within the story were incorrect, thus we retract the article in its entirety.
We are beginning a thorough investigation of Parker's work since she joined the newspaper in 2006.
Plagiarism and knowingly publishing inaccurate information violates The News Leader's Principles of Ethical Conduct, a commitment to you that we take very seriously. We will report our findings once the investigation is complete
— David Fritz, executive editor Link
The
continuation of an article about NASA seeking a new space race on Page
A14 Tuesday reported incorrectly the year Neil Armstrong walked on the
moon. The year was 1969.
Clarification:
A story in yesterday's Nation pages about Mitt Romney mixing up Barack
Obama and Osama bin Laden said that Fox News Channel president Roger
Ailes had previously used the similarity between the names Osama and
Obama to mock the senator. Fox News says Ailes was making a joke aimed
at President Bush, not Obama, when Ailes said in a speech to broadcast
executives in March: "And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move.
I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and
said, `Why can't we catch this guy?"' Link
More here.
According to a survey by SkillSoft, 30 per cent of employees do not
think their boss is qualified for the job. Incorrect information
appeared in Monday's paper. Link
This is a correction to a column written by the editor of this site for the Globe And Mail. The story originally and incorrectly stated that only 30 percent of employees thought their boss was qualified. And yes, the correction should have included the original error and article title. The above is the corrections style for the paper. We'll see if we can help change it to be more descriptive.
Jimmy
Warren, financial treasurer of a United Steelworkers local, makes
$8,252.62, according to a union spokesman and an LM-2 filing with the
Department of Labor. The amount is overstated elsewhere on the
Department of Labor Web site and was misreported in this editorial. Link
This is another case of a correction leaving out pertinent information. The paper had originally reported that Warren's salary was $825,262. Yes, it was a decimal error, and the mistake was also on the Department of Labour's website. But the correct information was available elsewhere online and the error resulted in a huge difference that made Warren look like a crook. Did the WSJ really believe that he was being paid over $800,000 to be the treasurer of a union local? Or did it just fit the tone of the editorial? The correction should have noted the original mistake.
Not missing a chance to hit back at a negative editorial, the USW put out a press release to object to the error and call for a correction, though the release does not acknowledge that the error also appeared on the Dept. of Labor website. So perhaps both the correction and release were missing some pertinent information. The release:
News From USW: The United Steelworkers (USW) today demanded an apology from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on behalf its 1.2 million active and retired members in the United States and Canada after the newspaper grossly over-reported a USW local union officer's compensation in a vitriol-and-error-filled Monday editorial, ostensibly aimed at congressional Democrats who voted last week to trim $2 million from the Office of Labor Management Standards' projected nearly $50 million 2008 budget.
In a particularly mean-spirited passage designed to illustrate how union leaders are not members of the working class, the newspaper singles out USW member Jimmy Warren, a democratically elected local union financial officer from Arkansas, as receiving $825,262 in payments from his union. In reality, the financial report for his local, which is available to the public online for free, clearly shows that he was compensated $8,252.62, an over $817,000 difference.
The Steelworkers said that even though the newspaper printed a completely inadequate, out-of-context correction after the USW lodged its complaint, the troubling fact remains that one of the world's most widely read financial journals has displayed irresponsibility with regard to fact-checking that insults its readers, to say nothing of the paper's obvious contempt for working men and women.
In Thursday’s edition we erroneously ran a photo of former Metro
Councilman David Briley accompanying a story on his brother, state Rep.
Rob Briley. The City Paper regrets the error.
Seems like an understandable error, except that Rep. Briley had recently "checked into rehab after being charged with two felonies, a DUI and several additional misdemeanors after two incidents in DeKalb and Wilson counties in early September," according to the Nashville City Paper. So perhaps his brother wasn't so pleased with the mixup after all. The online version of the article does not carry the correction, though it does have the correct photo. The e-paper version shows the correction here.
Big hat tip to Kleinheider at VolunteerVoters.com for spotting the error and writing about it.
Contrary to two articles published on Oct. 20 and 22, Impark (Imperial
Parking Canada Corporation) did not operate the parking lots near the
Cirque du Soleil performances at Commissioner and Cherry Sts., and does
not have parking lots in that area. The Star regrets the error and apologizes to Impark. Link
A
STORY in The Australian yesterday (''Grandmother tells of desperate
attempt to save Dean'', page 1) incorrectly stated that Dean
Shillingsworth's father was jailed for bashing the former partner of
the boy's mother. In fact, Paul Shillingsworth was jailed for bashing
the former partner of his own mother. The error was made in the
production process.
Background here and here.
TVNewser acquired the memo that ABC News head David Westin sent to staff about the findings of the internal investigation into the work of Alexis Debat, a former consultant with the network. Some relevant excerpts:
...This review was extremely sensitive, as it required going back to confidential sources in this country and abroad. It also involved traveling to Pakistan to confirm first-hand the circumstances of Mr. Debat's work there.
Early in our review, we learned that there were other interviews Mr. Debat had published in France that the subjects denied had been conducted. We reported this story immediately on ABC News.com.
We have now completed our review. After going through all of the stories Mr. Debat worked on for ABC News, we found no instances of false reporting. Mr. Debat was not the sole source for anything ABC News reported. Moreover, we confirmed with Mr. Debat's confidential sources that they had given him the information as he'd claimed in contributing to our reports. We also confirmed that Mr. Debat traveled to the locations in Pakistan as he had claimed and talked with the sources he had identified.
Our review did uncover four details of Mr. Debat's reporting that we couldn't confirm. In one case, he mis-identified which branch of U.S. Special forces had engaged in a particular operation, although we did confirm the other facts surrounding the operation. We also found disagreements over the location for two meetings reported on by Mr. Debat, although, again, we could confirm the other facts surrounding the meetings. And, one of the people whom Mr. Debat identified as attending a meeting would neither confirm nor deny that he/she was a direct participant. None of these discrepancies would rise to the level of a formal, on-air retraction because none of them was material to the substance of our report.
So none of the stories he worked on need to be retracted, but does this mean ABC News won't inform viewers of its findings? Why not explain the detailed investigation that took place?
Also, an AP story about the memo that ABC has on its website seems to have a misleading headline. (This appears to be AP's doing, not ABC's; see here.) It reads, "ABC: No Errors Tied to 'Fake' Consultant." But Westin's memo clearly states that there are details and facts that can't be confirmed. Is that really the same as "no errors"? Also, the AP story does not detail the discrepancies outlined in the memo. Why not?
ABC News is also instituting changes to its practices:
There are three changes we are making in our internal practices based on what we've learned from this case.
Starting immediately, we will include both our News Practices team and the corporate Human Resources Department in the hiring of all consultants, reviewing in particular claims of prior employment and educational history. We will also undertake a review of current consultants where appropriate.
When we hire a consultant, we will make a determination of exactly how that person will be identified on all programs and platforms.
News Practices will be alerted each time that we include a consultant in our reporting to ensure that the consultant is being used and identified properly.
We undertake extensive efforts in all of our reporting — and particularly in our investigative reporting — to check and double-check information we are given so that no one source can compromise the truth of what we present to our audiences. Based on our review, our overall systems and procedures worked in the case of Mr. Debat. Nothing in our review, of course, condones the instances of resume enhancement or fake interviews that Mr. Debat published elsewhere.
A
pullout of statements made during Sunday night's Republican debate
misattributed a comment on health care to Ron Paul. It was Arkansas
Gov. Mike Huckabee who said: "When all the old hippies find out they
can get free drugs, just wait to see how much that is going to cost us." Link
An
article about men doing yoga was illustrated with a photograph of a
T'ai Chi class (He was invading my sanctuary, page 18, G2, October 16). Link
Equals a marriage made in heaven as far as we're concerned.
On Sunday's edition of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!, the wonderful news quiz show that airs on NPR, Stephen Colbert was brought on to do the Not My Job segment. To our joy, the program decided to quiz him about media errors, and it used the oh-so-soon-to-be-released Regret the Error book as its source. Colbert managed to get two out of three questions correct, while also providing some of his usual brand of entertainment in the interview prior to the quiz. To listen, go here and then click on the "Not My Job: Stephen Colbert" link on the page.
Trust us , you'll enjoy it. Perhaps it will even inspire you to purchase the book. We're just sayin'...
Due
to a technical error The Moscow News ran a typo in the article titled
"Bringing Expats to Russia - Without the Pain"(Issue #40, page 17). The
sentence in the seventh paragraph ending with "...though actually I find
that Moscow is not clean." should have read "...though actually I find
that Moscow is clean."
We regret the error and extend our apology to Tim Carty.
"Canvas":
The review of "Canvas" in Friday's Calendar section said the film was
rated R for drug use, strong sexuality, violence and pervasive
language. That rating was for a 1992 film with the same title. The
"Canvas" that opened Friday is rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements. Link
In
'Turncoat Terry' (Sport, 23 Sept), we did not intend to adopt any
allegation that John Terry was a 'turncoat' or 'disloyal' or that he
had played any intentional part in the departure of Jose Mourinho from
Chelsea Football Club. We accept his assurance that he did not. We also
accept that our headline might have caused confusion and apologise if
any contrary impression was given. Link
X-rated movie director Inkyo Volt Hwang's nickname was Wanker Wang. An article on page A1 Saturday misspelled the nickname. Link
An amusing Reuters error catalogued by the always entertaining The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (click to enlarge): 
A
brief Tuesday in the City & State section about a Chapel Hill
police officer being bitten named the wrong person as the one charged
with the assault. Partia Marie Allen, 21, of Durham, was charged with
assault on a government official, malicious conduct by a prisoner and
drunk and disruptive behavior at Spice Street restaurant early Sunday
morning. Link
An obituary Tuesday on Nolan Herndon, who participated in World War
II's Doolittle Raid, gave his nickname as Sue. In fact, he was known
only as Nolan Anderson Herndon. Link
Herndon obituary: The obituary of Doolittle Raider Nolan A.
Herndon in Monday's California section gave his nickname as Sue. In
fact, he was known only as Nolan Anderson Herndon. In addition, his
sons were listed as Nolan A. "Sue" Herndon Jr. and James M. "Debbie"
Herndon. Neither son goes by those nicknames; Sue and Debbie are the
names of their wives. Link
On
24 August 2007, "The Australian Financial Review" (AFR) referred to the
public relations (PR) firm Jackson Wells Morris (JWM). Regarding the
page 17 article, the AFR accepts that JWM are not "spin doctors" for
the Liberal Party of Australia. In fact, it has been a long-standing
company policy not to work for any political party. The AFR also
accepts that JWM provided a client report with an unbiased and honest
view of industry opinion. To this effect, JWM did not prepare a report
with the aim of convincing the Australian Labor Party to retain the
building industry regulator, the Australian Building & Construction
Commission...
An article on July 5, 1994, about James B. Blair, then the general
counsel for the Tyson Foods company and a longtime confidant and
personal emissary for Bill and Hillary Clinton, misstated benefits that
Tyson received from the state of Arkansas while Mr. Clinton was
governor. Although the company did benefit from at least $7 million in
state tax credits, it did not receive $9 million in loans from the
state. (The error appeared in three other articles and in an editorial
in 1994, all of which were corrected on April 20 of that year. The
correction should have been appended then in The Times’s archives to
those articles: one on the front page on March 18 about Mrs. Clinton’s
commodity trades in the late 1970s; a March 19 article about President
Clinton’s defense of Mrs. Clinton’s investments; a March 30 article
about the White House’s disclosure of the amount Mrs. Clinton invested
in commodities trades, and a March 31 editorial.)
The error in
the July 5 article was discovered during research after the watchdog
group Media Matters twice pointed out that the 1994 correction had not
been appended to the other articles. Link
In an Oct. 10 story about the
exhumation of George Gipp's remains for a DNA test, The Associated
Press, relying on information from Gipp's hometown, erroneously
reported he scored 83 touchdowns for Notre Dame. Gipp scored 21
touchdowns and passed for eight others, according to the university's
sports information office. Link
Thanks, Jim!
Oscar
Wilde did not say, on his deathbed, "Either those curtains go or I do."
He is reported to have said something along the lines of "this
wallpaper will be the death of me - one of us will have to go", but not
on his deathbed (Genius declared: Wilde tops the wit list, page 11,
October 15). Link
The
wrong versions of articles by two Spectator columnists appeared in
Saturday's paper. Columns by Cecelia Carter Smith and Harold Howe were
repeats of earlier columns. The proper columns appear in today's Sports
section. The Spectator apologizes for the errors and any confusion they
may have caused. Link
IN
our article "Drugs suicide of driver who killed girl of 3" we said that
Ryan Frayne had "fled Britain after his van killed a little girl".
We
have been asked by the family to point out that Ryan had not "fled" the
country and it is incorrect to call his death a suicide.
Until the coroner reaches a verdict, the facts of his death remain under investigation.
From the Canning Times of Perth, Australia:
LAST week s story Perth played part in space history incorrectly referred to a WA Astronomical Society founding member as the late Ron Ashe.
Mr Ashe is, in fact, alive.
The Canning Times apologises for any confusion or distress caused by the error.
WE wish to apologise to Carol Vorderman and her family for the misleading headline VORDERCON which we ran in Monday's paper.
The
story was about a newsagent in Prestatyn who was prepared to lie for
the programme 'Who Do You Think You Are?', which Carol took part in and
which has promoted the town of Prestatyn hugely. As we made clear in
the article we accept that Carol knew nothing of the newsagent's
deceit. We're sorry Carol.
An Oct. 13 Page One article about an allegation that the government
withdrew a $100 million contract after Qwest refused to participate in
a National Security Agency program incorrectly quoted Kurt Opsahl,
senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He did
not say: "It's inappropriate for the government to be awarding a
contract conditioned upon an agreement to an illegal program. That
truly is what's going on here." What he said was: "It's inappropriate
for the government to be awarding a contract conditioned upon an
agreement to an illegal program, if that's truly what's going on here." Link
Thanks, Jay!
A
photograph accompanying a story about Teen Challenge in Saturday's
Intelligencer Journal incorrectly identified the subject, who is the
Rev. James Santiago.
The story included an
incorrect identification of Santiago's wife, Pam. Also, Santiago was
addicted to crack cocaine for 12 years.
Yet another example of how some corrections raise more questions than they answer.
George
Bush was not the benefactor of the US supreme court ruling that gave
him victory in the 2000 election, but the beneficiary (Al Gore wins the
Nobel peace prize. And this time, no one can take it away from him,
page 3, October 13). Link
Editor's Note: In our print edition, several captions for the
photographs accompanying this report were inadvertantly transposed.
Martin Kramer's photograph is identified as Norman Podhoretz; Daniel
Pipes's photograph is identified as Kramer; Peter Berkowitz's
photograph is identified as Pipes; Nile Gardiner's photograph is
identified as Berkowitz's and Podhoretz's photograph is identified as
Gardiner's. NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.
Daniel Pipes has the original image up on his website. He notes that, "There are six pictures in all on the page and five of the six captions
are wrong; only that of Robert Kasten is correct. Aggregating so many
errors at once takes real talent – but count on Newsweek."
He's not a fan.
Thanks, Jim!
An anecdote about eating chestnuts collected in the city was included
in The Ingredient Column last week. According to The Canadian Chestnut
Council, Only American, Chinese, Japanese And European Chestnuts are
edible. Horse Chestnuts, commonly found in Toronto, are not. Link
Correction
In "A Sunny Interval" (Home, Sept 30), we stated, incorrectly, that
Sian Lloyd last year broke off her engagement to the Liberal Democrat
MP Lembit Opik after he began dating one of the Cheeky Girls. We wish
to make it clear this was inaccurate. Sian Lloyd terminated her
relationship with Opik prior to his relationship with his new partner,
Gabriela Irimia, and this therefore had no bearing on the end of the
engagement. We regret any distress this error may have caused.
The Canadian Press erroneously
reported Wednesday that a waitress from Newcastle, Ont., picked all 13
NFL winners on Thanksgiving weekend, becoming the biggest Pro-Line
winner in Ontario history — with a prize of $444,186. In fact, the
story was old and moved in error. The woman’s lucky weekend was last
year.
The correction was truncated by The Record of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario to read:
The Canadian Press erroneously reported in a story in the Sports section Thursday that a waitress from Newcastle, Ont., picked all 13 NFL winners on Thanksgiving weekend, becoming the biggest Pro-Line winner in Ontario history. Link
Thanks, Jim!
A story taken from the Associated Press wire service headlined 'Race
row mayor hits back at protest song' (World, last week) was wrong to
state that a white student in Jena, Louisiana, had been 'beaten to
death last December'. The student, Justin Barker, was beaten, but not
fatally. Apologies. Link
In Saturday's story about the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the
sexual orientation of the Whoreshoes was misstated. Only vocalist Lala
Hulse is a lesbian. The other members of the all-female band are
heterosexual.
In
yesterday's edition we wrongly reported that a member of Haiti's
Provisional Electoral Council, Louis Richeme, had been murdered.
Richeme is alive and accuses other members of the PEC of embezzlement
and of "trying to have him murdered".
Hasbro,
the US toymaker, has not been involved in any of the recent US recalls
of Chinese-made toys linked to lead-based paint concerns, as wrongly
stated in the FT on October 11. Link
The good folks at Check Your Facts recently published an item stating that the roll out of the New York Times internal corrections database is complete. The paper is now entering all of its corrections into a central database, much like how the Boston Globe, Rocky Mountain News and a few other US papers have been doing. Reports CYF:
Check Your Facts has learned that the New York Times may finally be making good on one of the recommendations laid out in a 2005 report titled “Preserving Our Readers’ Trust.”
Fresh from a "training class," a well-placed source at the Times says a computerized tracking system for corrections is being implemented.
Correspondent Adam Klasfeld learned of the new system through correspondence with a New York Times editor (Check Your Facts is withholding the editor's name in order to maintain open communications on the matter). The NYT editor said that no tracking system as described in the report currently exists but that a “training class” was held for a new system. “We are just implementing it,” wrote the editor. “We are beginning with corrections on October 1.”
We reported on the roll out of the system in December of last year after speaking with Greg Brock, the paper's corrections editor:
A final note from the Times: Brock says the paper does have a corrections database that is being used by some departments. Each department can see its own corrections tally, and Brock has access to the total data. He says they are working to roll it out within all departments. This database was one of the recommendations of the Siegal Committee. It's good to see the paper following up on this project. We hope it's fully operational ASAP.
In an email response this week, Brock said the system was fully operational as of September 17. "So it is in place, though we are continuing to train editors who will use it only occasionally because they work on sections or special issues of magazines that publish just a few times a year," he wrote. "The main news desks are already using it."
We asked if the paper plans to release its tallies the way some other paper do (see these links: 1, 2, 3, 4), and Brock said the issue hadn't yet been raised, but that he would look into it. As of now, he is distributing reports to the relevant editors on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis in order to show them the most common types of errors in their sections. It's good to hear the data is being put to use to help fuel preventative initiatives.
