Posted on 03/03/2004 9:44:56 AM PST by chance33_98
Chicago Tribune Fires Freelance Reporter for Making Up Source Name
CHICAGO (AP) - The Chicago Tribune said Wednesday it fired a freelance writer and former longtime foreign correspondent after he admitted fabricating the name of a source he quoted making disparaging remarks about Aborigines in a recent story from Australia. The Tribune apologized to its readers for "this breach of trust" in a brief story under its "Corrections and Clarifications" fixture on the second page of Wednesday's editions.
It said Uli Schmetzer, who worked for the paper as a foreign correspondent for 16 years before retiring two years ago and becoming a freelancer, "has been terminated as a contract writer with the newspaper."
Don Wycliff, the Tribune's public editor, said editors are examining Schmetzer's other work for the newspaper, beginning with the past three years.
The Tribune said the article in question was published Feb. 24 and was about rioting that occurred following the death of an Aborigine boy.
Schmetzer attributed the following quote to a Graham Thorn, who was identified as a psychiatrist: "These people always complain. They want it both ways - their way and our way. They want to live in our society and be respected, yet they won't work. They steal, they rob and they get drunk. And they don't respect the laws."
Wycliff said Tribune editors began looking into the story on Monday after receiving an e-mail complaint sent the day before by a reader in Australia. The newspaper said Schmetzer maintained that the comment was uttered by an Australian man of his acquaintance but admitted he had made up the speaker's name and occupation.
Schmetzer could not immediately be located for comment.
Wycliff said Schmetzer initially claimed he had changed the name at the request of his source, who didn't want to be flooded by e-mails and angry phone calls from his countrymen. Later, he told editors that wasn't true, the newspaper said.
"I don't think we ever really got a clear explanation of why," Wycliff said. "He was just rueful and regretful and kept saying it was an act of stupidity."
"Fabrication of any sort in a news story is a violation of the fundamental ethical principles of journalism and simply is not tolerated at the Chicago Tribune," the newspaper said in the four-paragraph item.
...but is necessary to get Democrats elected, so we'll keep doing it. However, we do promise that we'll be harder to catch the next time.
It is not enough to say you'll look back over his stories and see if you can find anything else. The proper response is "we at the Tribune have discovered a tumor on our integrity. We have excised it, but we cannot fix the other falsehoods which are 99.999% guaranteed to exist in previous reports".
I'd wager that there is a significant percentage of print reporters who make s*** up on a regular basis. Maybe more than one in ten. It's too easy. Read a news account of an event or issue that has clear partisan sides. Read with a healthy skepticism, but not cynicism. The unattributed quotes are perfect; the storylines could easily translate to the big screen.
Now, I'm not an ombudsman and I've never worked for a paper. Maybe they need to inform us of their internal checks. "Trusting" a reporter's sources is crap. A reporter who wishes to keep "senior administration officials" anonymous should have to disclose the actual name to an editor (or an ombudsman).
Under current media guidelines, it appears I could write a story about how Hillary Clinton fondles chickens and source it impeccably.
See also 'By day's end he was no longer a writer for the Tribune' (username: anonymous / password: anonymous)
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