Who was the paper that did the clubbing baby seals stories in the first person the day the hunt was postponed? Was that the Boston Globe?
A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media.
The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seasonal hunt for baby seals off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, had not taken place.
The story datelined Halifax, Nova Scotia described in graphic detail how the seal hunt began on Tuesday, with water turning red as hunters on some 300 boats shot harp seal cubs "by the hundreds."
The problem, however, was that the hunt did not begin on Tuesday; it was delayed by bad weather and was scheduled to start on Friday, weather permitting, the Globe said in an editor's note.
Boston Globe Retracts Story by Freelancer it Says was Fabricated
The Boston Globe told readers in an editor's note published Friday that portions of a story it ran on a seal hunt off Newfoundland and Labrador were fabricated by a freelance reporter who was not at the scene.
The Globe said the reporter, Barbara Stewart, did not attend the event, which had actually been postponed because of bad weather, and that Globe editors should have demanded attribution for details she provided about the hunt.
SNIP
The article, published in Wednesday's editions of the Globe, said that the largest seal hunt in a half a century had resumed, involving hunters on about 300 boats "shooting at harp seal cubs by the hundreds, as the ice and water turned red."