Chicago Tribune Reporter Fabricated Sources

The Sydney Morning Herald ^ | March 5, 2004 | Andrew Hornery with Joel Gibson

[Thebaddog]

What do you do if you can't find a quotable psychiatrist? Invent one, of course.

That is what the freelance journalist Uli Schmetzer did when covering the Redfern riot for the Chicago Tribune last month, but he didn't count on the vigilance of the Australian weblogger Tim Blair. Blair smelled a rat when he read a quote by "psychiatrist Graham Thorn" saying: "These [Aboriginal] 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."

So Blair emailed the Tribune, which grilled Schmetzer and discovered the psychiatrist did not exist. At first, Schmetzer said the words were real and he was protecting a source with controversial views. But he later admitted that was a lie, the Tribune's editors admitted.

[Thebaddog]

Check this out, you won't be reading this article in a Chicago paper. It took a blogger to do this deal!

[Agnes Heep]

So he tried to slander the Aborigenes, but it boomeranged on him.

[VRWC_minion]

The pyschiatrist sounds like Rush Limbaugh, therefore the quote is impossible. The guy never would have made it out of school with those central beliefs. If on the other hand he blammed the west for the problems of the Aborigines, no one would have noticed.

[soozla]

Good job!!!! I live in Chicago and the "average joes" of this world don't deserve lying sycophants in ANY media in ANY country!!! Another example of the left-wing put-down - i.e. "they are all so stupid they will never know the difference"

[martin_fierro]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1089910/posts

[Prodigal Son]

Good stuff.

[Thebaddog]

Check out www.chicagonews.net for some really good down deep local news about the Chicagoland area. I found that site when I was trying to find stuff out about Roe and Garry and if they were coming back on the air sometime this century.

[soozla]

Thanks............and EVERY DAY, after Rush, when Roe and Garry come on, I have my fingers crossed that the've got the contract thing ironed out!! So far, no luck, but as Roe has said, they will be back, somewhere, sometime soon. I think that Roe's contract is up sometime this month or April, and if they haven't gotten squared away with Garry at that time, Roe will tell WLS to shove it and he and Garry will go, as a "package" to another station. Steve and Garry were hilarious, in their day, but I like Roe and Garry SO MUCH BETTER. I'm glad Garry found Roe, they make the best team on Chicago radio, for sure, and I'd like to think NATIONALLY, too. I've traveled around and not heard anyone NEARLY as good as them!!

[Thebaddog]

You have to give proper recognition to Jim and Christina as well as Roe and Garry. I have major hopes that the whole team comes back to WLS as it was. The four of them are a big part of my afternoon and I hope for more to come.

The only meaningful insight that I have gleaned is that the Mouse is playing too hard. But who knows.