Journalism fraud

Journalism fraud 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 journalism into question. As their reputations for accuracy and truthfulness are arguably the most important assets of mass media outlets, many strictly enforce codes of journalistic ethics[?] and carefully screen their reports for factual accuracy, publishing corrections even for minor errors soon after a story appears. When a case of journalism fraud is discovered (especially at a prestigious media outlet), it is widely reported upon.

Table of contents 1 Cases of Journalism Fraud 1.1 Orson Welles (1938) 1.2 Janet Cooke (1981) 1.3 NBC Dateline (1992) 1.4 Stephen Glass (1998) 1.5 Patricia Smith (1998) 1.6 Mike Barnicle (1998) 1.7 Rigoberta Menchú (1999) 1.8 CNN (2003) 1.9 Al-Jazeera (2003) 1.10 Jayson Blair (2003)

Cases of Journalism Fraud

Orson Welles (1938)

In 1938 Orson Welles broadcast a radio adaptation of the science fiction story The War of the Worlds, causing panic as many mistook the fictionalized account of a Martian invasion of the United States to be an actual event. Strictly speaking, though, Welles' broadcast more properly qualifies as a hoax rather than an instance of journalism fraud.

Janet Cooke (1981)

Janet Cooke was a reporter for the Washington Post during the early 1980s. In 1981 her story, "Jimmy's World", about an 8 year old heroin addict, won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Shortly afterwards, Cooke confessed that "Jimmy" was in fact a composite of several child addicts, and returned her Pulitzer and resigned from the Post.

NBC Dateline (1992)

In a November 1992 segment on its Dateline news program called "Waiting to Explode", NBC showed a General Motors truck 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.

Stephen Glass (1998)

Stephen Glass was a reporter and associate editor for The New Republic magazine during the late 1990s. On May 8, 1998, Forbes Magazine[?] presented The New Republic with evidence that Glass completely fabricated the story "Hack Heaven", a piece about a 15 year old computer hacker who, after breaking into a large corporation's datacenter, successfully extorted the company for money, pornography, a sports car, and then a job. After an internal investigation determined that 27 of 41 articles he had written for the magazine contained fabricated material, Glass was fired. Among these is one where Glass seems to be on-hand as several drunken young republicans, demoralized by the results of the 1996 election, conspire to seduce and humiliate some unattractive woman in an act of LaButian[?] sadism.

• Salon.com: Hacker heaven, editors' hell (http://archive.salon.com/21st/rose/1998/05/14straight.hml)

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 (http://www.cnn.com/US/9806/19/globe.columnist.resigns/)
• Salon.com: Confabulation crisis (http://www.salon.com/media/1998/06/26media)

Mike Barnicle (1998)

Mike Barnicle was a long-time journalist for the Boston Globe who was removed from his position at about the same time as colleague Patricia Smith. Though the reason for Barnicle's removal was plagiarism (specifically, reproducing unattributed passages from comedian George Carlin's book, Brain Droppings), Barnicle had been accused of more serious journalism fraud before, as when he fabricated a quotation in a story about Boston's 1970s school busing[?] controversy.

• Salon.com: repeat offender (http://www.salon.com/media/1998/08/20media)

Rigoberta Menchú (1999)

In 1983 Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchú published an account of her country's bloody civil war called I, Rigoberta Menchú. In 1992, largely on account of this book, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Several years later anthropologist Robert Stoll conducted a series of interviews with Menchú's former acquaintances for a follow-up book. During this time he discovered that her account was largely 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. No steps have been taken by the Noble Committee to revoke Menchú's award, though.

• Salon.com: Rigoberta Menchú meets the press (http://archive.salon.com/news/1999/02/12newsa)

CNN (2003)

In the April 11, 2003 edition of the New York Times, CNN chief news executive, Eason Jordan, wrote that CNN had suppressed information about atrocities committed by the Saddam Hussein regime against its own people in order to protect CNN staff stationed in Baghdad.

• New York Times: The News We Kept To Ourselves (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract?res=FA0C16FD3C5F0C728DDDAD0894DB404482)

Al-Jazeera (2003)

On May 11, 2003, the British newspaper, The Sunday Times, published a report that 3 Iraqi agents had infiltrated the Al Jazeera sattelite network in an effort to subvert its coverage of the second Gulf War. Al Jazeera is currently investigating these claims.

• CNN: Al-Jazeera to probe whether Iraqi agents infiltrated staff (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/11/aljazeera.iraq/)

Jayson Blair (2003)

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

• Washington Post: N.Y. Times Uncovers Dozens Of Faked Stories by Reporter (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40536-2003May10)
• New York Times: Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11PAPE?pagewanted=all&position=)
• New York Times: Executive Editor of The Times and Top Deputy Step Down (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/national/05SHELL-PAPE)