Journalists play a crucial role in informing the public, and accuracy is paramount. Most journalists uphold these standards, diligently reporting facts and keeping the public informed on a range of topics. However, some betray this trust by fabricating stories, which casts a shadow over the entire profession.
This list explores ten journalists who were caught faking the news, fabricating sources, and inventing quotes. Their actions serve as cautionary tales in the world of media.
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10. Jayson Blair
Jayson Blair quickly rose through the ranks at the New York Times, securing a full-time reporting position in the early 2000s. His promising career took a nosedive on April 28, 2003, when a national editor questioned him about a story that bore striking similarities to one in the San Antonio Express-News.
An investigation revealed extensive plagiarism. Blair lifted quotes, passages, and even entire sections from other reporters’ work. He falsely claimed to be in cities he wasn’t and fabricated sources, falsely attributing statements to experts who weren’t present at meetings.
In May 2003, he resigned amidst public scandal, forcing the Times to meticulously correct his fabrications. Blair later disclosed a bipolar diagnosis and published a memoir. He then established a support group for people with bipolar disorder and started a life coaching business. [1]
9. Stephen Glass
Stephen Glass, a journalist for the New Republic from 1995 to 1998, was fired for fabricating a story. Prior to his exposure, his work had raised concerns, with subjects claiming inaccuracies and fabrications. In mid-1998, his career imploded after he published a completely fabricated story about a teenage computer hacker.
Adam Penenberg, a Forbes reporter, found Glass’s article suspicious and attempted to fact-check it, only to discover that none of the “facts” could be verified. Forbes presented these findings to TNR, leading to an investigation. Glass claimed a “National Assembly of Hackers” conference took place at a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, but the hotel’s details didn’t match his description, and no one had heard of the assembly.
Charles Lane, a lead editor at TNR, confronted Glass with these inconsistencies and fired him immediately. Glass attended law school and passed the bar exam in New York and California, but was denied admission to practice due to ethical concerns. He now works as a paralegal, living a private life after his scandal shook the media world. [2]
8. Janet Cooke
Janet Cooke, a Washington Post journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for her story about “Jimmy,” an eight-year-old heroin addict in Washington, D.C. The story was compelling and tragic, but it was also completely fabricated.
The article sparked outrage, and officials tried to locate “Jimmy” and his mother, but no one could find them. Discrepancies emerged, and critics raised concerns. The Washington Post initially defended Cooke but eventually interrogated her. She confessed to fabricating the entire story, citing the high-pressure environment at the Post and her inability to confirm rumors about a child heroin addict.
Cooke resigned, and her Pulitzer Prize was revoked. She left journalism and lived in Paris for nearly a decade before returning to the United States. She now lives a private life, but the Post continues to grapple with the fallout from her fabrication. [3]
7. Jack Kelley
Jack Kelley, a longtime foreign correspondent for USA Today, covered global politics and war throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. His career ended in 2004 when the newspaper discovered he had fabricated key parts of his stories.
Kelley created scripts for associates to pose as sources, providing him with “quotes” for his stories. The exposure came when a lawyer in Belgrade, Serbia, disputed Kelley’s account of her being a source in a 1999 front-page article about the Yugoslav Army.
USA Today investigated and found that Kelley had misquoted people, fabricated quotes and sources, and outright invented details in at least eight major stories. In January 2004, Kelley resigned, denying the charges. However, USA Today issued a public apology, and other top editors resigned in the aftermath. [4]
6. Sabrina Rubin Erdely
Sabrina Rubin Erdely wrote “A Rape on Campus,” published in Rolling Stone in 2014, about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. The story initially went viral but soon faced scrutiny.
Critics questioned the facts about the alleged victim, Erdely’s sources, and the alleged assailants. Other journalists couldn’t confirm Erdely’s sources or gain access to the victim. Rolling Stone commissioned a review by the Columbia University School of Journalism, which criticized Erdely and Rolling Stone for failing to engage in basic journalistic practices.
Erdely was accused of having a preconceived conclusion and manipulating facts to support it. Rolling Stone retracted the piece and issued multiple apologies. The University of Virginia administrator depicted in the story sued Erdely and Rolling Stone for defamation. In November 2016, a jury found Erdely liable for defamation and ordered her to pay $2 million in damages. [5]
5. Brian Williams
Brian Williams was the anchor for NBC Nightly News, starting in 1993. In February 2015, he was accused of embellishing his experiences covering the Iraq War.
Williams was specifically accused of exaggerating his involvement in a helicopter raid, with some critics claiming he fabricated the story entirely. He admitted to embellishing his experiences and the extent of his involvement in covering the war.
NBC suspended Williams for six months. An internal investigation found he had embellished at least 11 stories. He was removed from Nightly News and reassigned to MSNBC as a breaking news anchor. He hosted The 11th Hour from 2016 until he left MSNBC in 2021. [6]
4. Michael Finkel
Michael Finkel, a journalist who had written for the New York Times, was fired in 2002 for fabricating a story about child slavery in Africa. He created a composite character named Youssouf Malé, using details from multiple interviews.
Finkel’s story claimed to uncover the Arab slave trade, but his reporting found children working in poor conditions, not as slaves. He created Malé, claiming he had sold himself into slavery on a cocoa plantation in the Ivory Coast. The NYT published the story with a photograph of a boy purported to be Malé.
An official from Save the Children informed the NYT that the boy in the picture was not Youssouf Malé. Finkel admitted to fabricating Malé, using details from multiple boys and the name of one he had interviewed. The NYT immediately fired him. [7]
3. Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith, a columnist for the Boston Globe, was fired in 1998 for fabricating sources and stories. Smith was a respected columnist and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. However, she was found to have fabricated quotations and story subjects in several columns.
In one instance, the paper had to announce that Smith made up a woman dying of cancer for a story. The woman didn’t exist. The Globe asked Smith to resign, and she did. Matthew V. Storin, the Globe’s editor, called it “a tragedy” and emphasized the importance of readers’ trust.
The newspaper allowed Smith to write a final column about her fabrications. She wrote, “From time to time in my metro column, to create the desired impact or slam home a salient point, I attributed quotes to people who didn’t exist…I am sorry for betraying your trust.” [8]
2. Benny Johnson
In 2014, BuzzFeed fired Benny Johnson, their Viral Politics Editor, after discovering over 40 instances of plagiarism. Johnson had copied large portions of copy from various sources, including political websites, blogs, Wikipedia, US News & World Report, and Yahoo! Answers. He lifted material verbatim without attribution.
BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith called Johnson’s plagiarism “not a minor slip” and promised to improve onboarding procedures to maintain high training standards. [9]
1. Ruth Shalit Barrett
In 2020, the Atlantic hired Ruth Shalit Barrett to write a piece on wealthy parents in New England obsessed with getting their children into Ivy League schools. After the piece was published, readers pointed out that Barrett had been fired by the New Republic in the 1990s for plagiarism.
The Atlantic investigated and found that Barrett’s sources were fabricated, and some were misquoted. In one instance, Barrett asked a source to lie to the fact-checking department. The Atlantic retracted the piece and removed it from their website.
“We now know that the author misled our fact-checkers, lied to our editors, and is accused of inducing at least one source to lie to our fact-checking department,” the Atlantic wrote in an editor’s note. “We believe that these actions fatally undermined the effectiveness of the fact-checking process. It is impossible for us to vouch for the accuracy of this article. This is what necessitates a full retraction. We apologize to our readers.” [10]
These cases highlight the importance of accuracy and ethics in journalism. Fabricating news erodes public trust and undermines the credibility of the media.
What do you think about these cases of journalistic malpractice? Leave your comment below!
