Free press? Think again...

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Henry_Chinaski
Board Lord

Joined: Aug 16, 2003
Posts: 5025

Posted: Mar 20, 2004 - 09:20 PM
Post subject: Free press? Think again...

So,
we often discuss here how important it is to have a free press. No doubts about that.
Without a free press basically there is a lot of dust that will be sweeped under the carpet without no one of us ever knowing about it. Examples of that are vast.

However, what to do when the free press we all praise so highly is irresponsible?

What is better? To have a free press that can basically publish everything (including lies) or a press that is supervised by an organization that can filter what is published and what is not?

Check this article out...

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Ex-USA TODAY reporter faked major stories
By Blake Morrison,USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-03-18-2004-03-18_kelleymain_x.htm

"Seven weeks into an examination of former USA TODAY reporter Jack Kelley’s work, a team of journalists has found strong evidence that Kelley fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories, lifted nearly two dozen quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he gave for the newspaper and conspired to mislead those investigating his work.
Perhaps Kelley’s most egregious misdeed occurred in 2000, when he used a snapshot he took of a Cuban hotel worker to authenticate a story he made up about a woman who died fleeing Cuba by boat. The woman in the photo neither fled by boat nor died, and a USA TODAY reporter located her this month. If Cuban authorities had learned she was the woman in the picture, she says, she could have lost her job and her chance to emigrate.

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. Each was examined by at least two members of the team.

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 Kelley’s 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 newspaper’s investigation. “I’ve never fabricated or plagiarized anything,” Kelley said.

Confronted Thursday with the newspaper’s findings, Kelley spent 2 1/2 hours again denying wrongdoing. “I feel like I’m being set up,” he told them.

But an extensive examination of about 100 of the 720 stories uncovered evidence that found Kelley’s journalistic sins were sweeping and substantial. The evidence strongly contradicted Kelley’s published accounts that he spent a night with Egyptian terrorists in 1997; met a vigilante Jewish settler named Avi Shapiro in 2001; watched a Pakistani student unfold a picture of the Sears Tower and say, “This one is mine,” in 2001; visited a suspected terrorist crossing point on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in 2002; interviewed the daughter of an Iraqi general in 2003; or went on a high-speed hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2003.

In addition:

• Significant parts of one of Kelley’s most gripping stories, an eyewitness account of a suicide bombing that helped make him a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist, are untrue. Kelley told readers he saw the bomber. But the man he described could not have been the bomber.

• Kelley’s 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.

Kelley’s 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 Kelley’s work.

Before he resigned in January, Kelley spent his entire 21-year career at USA TODAY. Editors nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize five times. Now, Editor Karen Jurgensen said the newspaper will withdraw all prize entries it made on Kelley’s behalf. The newspaper also will flag stories of concern in its online archive.

“As an institution, we failed our readers by not recognizing Jack Kelley’s problems. For that I apologize,” USA TODAY publisher Craig Moon said. “In the future, we will make certain that an environment is created in which abuses will never again occur.”

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How USA TODAY is conducting the investigation
A team of reporters spent seven weeks examining the work of former USA TODAY reporter Jack Kelley. The reporters read about 720 stories Kelley filed from 1993 through 2003. Each of the stories was read and discussed by at least two members of the team. Hundreds were relatively routine news reports. But about 150 stories stood out to the group for a variety of reasons.

At least 56 were based on exclusive, eyewitness reports, usually reported overseas. Dozens cited anonymous intelligence officials. Others were human-interest stories that offered poignant details about the suffering of war, illness and oppression. In at least 10 cases, Kelley wrote that he watched someone die.

To verify the stories, members of the team interviewed dozens of people; reviewed scores of Kelley's expense reports; traveled to Cuba, Israel and Jordan; scoured records from Kelley's hotel, mobile and office phones; reread transcripts of speeches Kelley gave; ran at least 150 stories through plagiarism-detection software; and examined the contents of the laptop computer Kelley was issued by the company. Phone records were incomplete, and most of the documents on the laptop had been deleted before Kelley left the newspaper in January.

Three veteran journalists from outside the paper — Bill Hilliard, Bill Kovach and John Seigenthaler — monitored the process and spent about 20 hours interviewing Kelley about his stories and the newsroom culture at USA TODAY. The transcripts of those interviews were shared with the team. Seigenthaler is the founding editorial director of USA TODAY. Hilliard is former editor of The Oregonian in Portland, Ore. Kovach is chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, a group devoted to discussing journalism's future.

Members of the team, which continues to examine Kelley's work, are: John Hillkirk, editor; Michael Hiestand, Kevin McCoy, Blake Morrison, Rita Rubin and Julie Schmit, reporters; Ruth Fogle and Tom Ankner, researchers. "

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For further info check: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/national/19CND-PAPE.html?ex=10803636 00&en=743eb09a2dfd5986&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

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And think about the amount of people this bastard influenced, think about actions that were taken because of this irresponsible reporter. Is the press free for the sake of freedom necessarily a good thing?

Free press is as good as controlled press. It's up to YOU to decide on what to believe.

rgds,
HC.